Stadium likely won't be finished until mid April

It will likely be mid-April before the city will get its hands on the new Tim Horton’s Field stadium.

That’s the prediction from Gerry Davis, head of public works, who told the city’s Pan Am subcommittee on Tuesday that the $145-million stadium still isn’t done — yet.

Ontario Sports Solutions (ONSS), the construction consortium Infrastructure Ontario hired to build the stadium, expects to apply for a city inspection, as well as an inspection from an independent certifier on Thursday. Both will take about 10 days, Davis said.

Once that passes, it will be a substantial hurdle in the quest for substantial completion, Davis said.

But Davis estimated that with 139 outstanding compliance issues, it will be mid-April by the time the city takes over."

"By mid-April, we should be there," he said.

The stadium was initially supposed to be finished on June 30. It’s about eight months late. The province is withholding $89 million from ONSS until the project is completed.

Tim Horton’s Field is the site of 2015 Pan Am Games soccer matches. Coun. Jason Farr of Ward 2 asked Davis if the stadium would even be done for Pan Am. Davis said he’s confident that it will.

The Pan Am Games run from July 10 to 26. The city has 3,074 volunteers, about twice the amount it asked for, said Greg Maychak, the city’s manager of Pan Am initiatives.

About 60,000 have been sold for the soccer games so far, many of them for the gold medal weekend.