Humber River Regional Hospital Project Reaches Financial Close

Humber River Regional Hospital, with its co-sponsor Infrastructure Ontario, reached financial close with Plenary Health Care Partnerships to design, build, finance and maintain (for a 30-year concession) Humber's new acute care hospital.

Humber River Regional Hospital's new state-of-the-art acute care facility will be constructed on a block of approximately 27 acres at Keele Street and Highway 401 in northwestern Toronto. Highlights of the project include: increased capacity from 549 to 656 beds to meet the needs of the growing surrounding community, expanding emergency services to accommodate approximately 15 per cent more visits, increased specialized geriatric outpatient services, modern diagnostics equipment for detailed, accurate patient diagnosis and treatment and updated infectious disease containment systems to monitor and prevent a broad range of infections. When completed, the new hospital will be approximately 1.6 million square feet.

The hospital will be designed and built to meet the Canada Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system, with a goal of achieving LEED Silver certification. LEED buildings focus on healthy indoor environments, reduced greenhouse gas emissions and efficient use of energy, water and other resources.

The project is being delivered using an Alternative Financing and Procurement model. Plenary Health Care Partnerships will receive annual payments from Humber River Regional Hospital over a 30-year period following construction completion. Payments cover construction, building maintenance, life-cycle repair and renewal, and project financing. Project costs will total approximately $2.59 billion after 30 years (approximately $1.75 billion in today's dollars).

Infrastructure Ontario's legal team was led in-house by Tariq Taherbhai, Vice President, Project Legal as well as Jennifer Manning, Legal Counsel, and Daniel Horowitz, Legal Counsel. McCarthy Tétrault LLP acted as counsel to Infrastructure Ontario and Humber River Regional Hospital in the structuring, procurement, negotiation and settlement of the project documents, with a team that included Gordon Willcocks, Godyne Sibay, Cynthia MacDougall, Andrew Collingwood, Jonathan See, Brad Nicpon, and Vaibhav Sahay (financing) and Gerald Griffiths (labour and employment).

Plenary Health Care Partnerships' team members include Plenary Group, Innisfree, HCP Canada, PCL Constructors Canada, as construction contractor, Johnson Controls, as service provider, HDR Inc., C.F. Møller Architects, Hewlett-Packard, Plan Group, Modern Niagara, Smith+Andersen, Halsall Associates and RBC Capital Markets.

The $1.086 billion financing for the project comprises $80 million of equity, split equally between Plenary and Innisfree, and short- and long-term bonds issued in three series: $482 million of short-term bullet bonds; $375 million of long-term amortising bonds; and $149 million of long-term bullet bonds. RBC Capital Markets underwrote the entire bond issuance, with National Bank Financial and TD Securities acting as selling agents.

Plenary Health Care Partnerships was represented in Ontario by Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP, with a team that included Robert Bauer, Steve Martin, Paul Martin, Sonny Bhalla, Will Buchner, Mike Barrett, Ioana Hancas and Atanas Varbanov and in British Columbia by Peter Fairey of the Vancouver office of Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP. PCL Constructors Canada was represented by Don Lucky, John Paul Janssens and Mark Hildebrand of Reynolds Mirth Richards & Farmer LLP. Johnson Controls was represented in Ontario by Darryl Brown, Faithe Holder and Lindsay Wong of the Toronto office of Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP and in Nova Scotia by Fae Shaw, QC, of McInnes Cooper.

RBC Capital Markets was represented by Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP with a team that included Brian Kelsall, Ella Plotkin, Sean Morley and Marc Lefler.