Bird Construction Inc. announced that it is part of a consortium selected as the preferred proponent 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 square-foot building, including over 16 kilometres 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 commence construction activity shortly thereafter, with a scheduled completion date in late 2017. At this time, there can be no assurances that the consortium will receive a contract award related to this project. The company 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 square-feet. Construction of this project will commence shortly and completion is expected in the fall of 2016.