Vozza loses Grace contract

Lou Vozza has been stripped of his contract to develop the former Grace Hospital into a long-term care facility MPP Dwight Duncan said, speaking for the Ministry of Health on Friday.

After taking about an hour to review documents submitted to the Ministry of Health on Friday, Duncan said the province has "finished doing business with him" because the documents were "nowhere near" sufficient enough to meet the government's requirements for financing the project.

Duncan saiduntil now, the province wasn't in a legal position to pull the plug. Now it will look to one of the two developers who bid for the job against Vozza to take over the project, he said.

In fact, he said that the province has already been in communication with the other bidders.

"Both have expressed an interest," Duncan said. "We think we'll have the new developer in place within a week."

Location of development uncertain

Duncan couldn't say where the development might happen now that Vozza is out. But Grace is still a possibility, if Vozza is willing to sell the property, he said.

The project has been mired in delays for about three years. Vozza has said that his financial problems were to blame.

On Thursday, Dwight Duncan, Windsor-Tecumseh MPP, issued an ultimatum to Vozza get your finances in order or the contract will be revoked on Friday at noon.

Province in good legal position: Duncan

Speaking to the media over the phone, the finance minister said there weren't any financial penalties for cancelling the contract with Vozza, but acknowledged that there has been a "horrendous cost" to the health care system and the region's seniors who were waiting for long term care beds to become available.

'This contract has been completely violated," Duncan said. "We had to go extra mile to insure that he would not have a case against the province."

The province is now also in a legal position to fast-track the project and avoid a time-consuming bidding process, he said.

"My principal objective right now is to get this damn thing built, get it underway. People have been waiting too long," said Duncan.

Duncan said the new developer would have to accommodate the same number of beds as the Grace Village project.

The province will be reviewing what went wrong with the contract to make sure that mistakes won't be repeated in future contracts, he said.

Duncan said the province will work with the city to clean up the Grace site if it's not developed by the new contractor.