[ericmacm]

There are a few different reasons that location was chosen:
- The county and surrounding towns (Lasalle, Tecumseh, Lakeshore, Essex, Amherstburg) are growing faster than the City of Windsor. Major growth centres in the future are better served by this location than a downtown location. WRH also takes a lot of patients from Chatham, especially emergency rural patients that CKCHC cannot handle.
- The downtown area has a major sewer infrastructure deficit, with much of the old sewer lines in the downtown core being combined sewers. A new hospital of this size in the core would require major investments in sewer infrastructure that the city cannot afford and the province most likely won't want to pay for. This is the biggest reason why you see almost no major development projects in downtown Windsor today. This issue is slowly being solved, but it will take a long time.
- Greenfield construction for these types of facilities allows for lots of cheap, long-term expansion as the region grows.

I will agree that it is far from optimal from an urban standpoint, but the new hospital is necessary and there really aren't a lot of feasible options anymore. The two older hospitals are in terrible states of repair and flood constantly. Their campuses also can't be expanded due to lack of land and local sewer infrastructure deficits. I'm just happy this is slowly moving forward, it's been a long enough wait as it is. I hope that at least one of the city campuses is kept as a satellite facility and serious renovations can be done after the demand is taken off the old campuses.