Bird plays key role in 2 ‘significant’ contracts

Bird Construction is part of a consortium selected as the preferred team to design, build, finance and maintain the East Rail Maintenance Facility located in Whitby, Ontario. 

Bird has an interest in, and is also the managing partner of, the construction joint venture to design and build the project. Bird will also take a minority equity interest in the concession responsible for the design, construction, financing and maintenance of the project through Bird Capital, a wholly-owned subsidiary. 

The East Rail Maintenance Facility will be a 500,000 sq.-ft. building, including over 16 km of rail track that will provide maintenance, repair and additional storage for GO trains in support of GO Transit’s planned service expansion. 

The consortium plans to reach financial close early in 2015 and start construction shortly thereafter, with a scheduled completion date in late 2017. 

Bird has also recently been awarded a fixed price contract to construct the Hamilton Transit Centre in Richmond, British Columbia which consists of a new bus maintenance and operations centre, with a focus on servicing Translink’s new fleet of energy efficient Compressed Natural Gas buses.  The project is comprised of six buildings totaling 167,000 sq.-ft.  Construction of this project will commence shortly and completion is expected in the fall of 2016.

“Bird is very excited about the East Rail Maintenance Facility which reflects the company’s ongoing commitment to actively pursue construction and equity investment opportunities in the P3 market across Canada, while the Hamilton Maintenance Facility contract award will further contribute positively to our work program over the course of the next few years,” said Ian Boyd, Bird’s president and CEO.