Thunder Bay Consolidated Courthouse Project Reaches Financial Close

On November 19, 2010, the Ministry of the Attorney General and Infrastructure Ontario, reached financial close with Plenary Justice Thunder Bay L.P. (“Plenary”), its lenders, The Toronto-Dominion Bank, The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company, The Canada Life Assurance Company, OPB Investments Inc. and BCE Master Trust Fund, and the lenders' agent, BNY Trust Company of Canada, to design, build, finance and maintain a new Thunder Bay Consolidated Courthouse. The Plenary team for this project includes Bird Design-Build Construction Inc. providing design and construction services and Johnson Controls L.P. as service provider.

After construction is completed, Plenary will receive annual service payments from Infrastructure Ontario over a 30-year-period. Payments cover construction, building maintenance, lifecycle repair and renewal and project financing. The payments will total approximately $473.5 million after 30 years. In today's dollars this is equivalent to approximately $247.7 million.

The project is structured as a design-build-finance-maintain project and will be delivered under the provincial government of Ontario's Alternative Financing and Procurement (AFP) delivery model.
Financing for the project included short-term financing from The Toronto-Dominion Bank and The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company, and long-term bond financing from The Canadian Life Assurance Company, OPB Investments Inc. and BCE Master Trust Fund.

Infrastructure Ontario's legal team was led in-house by Simon Finlayson. Ogilvy Renault LLP acted as counsel to Infrastructure Ontario and the Ministry of the Attorney General in the structuring, procurement, negotiation and settlement of the project documents, with a team that included Sandra Nissan, Andrew Pritchard, Nicole Sigouin, Mary Kelly, Joseph Hillier and Mark Bailey.

Plenary was represented by Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP with a team that included Robert Bauer, Steven Martin, Paul Martin, Patrice Thomas and Alina Silvestrovici Paun. Bird Design-Build Construction Inc. was represented in-house by Charles Caza, General Counsel and Chris Hooker, Corporate Counsel.

Johnson Controls L.P. was represented by Darryl Brown, Faithe Holder and Samir Gassanov of Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP.

All lenders to the project (short-term and long-term) were represented by Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP with a team that included Brian Kelsall, Ella Plotkin, Jon Holmstrom, Sean Morley, John Sabetti, Marc Lefler and Daniel Fuke.