Transports Québec ordered to pay Dorval Best Western hotel almost $6M in damages
Damages stem from Dorval Interchange project, which took away portion of the hotel's parking lot
Transports Québec is being ordered to pay almost $6 million in damages to a Best Western hotel that lost part of its parking lot to the troubled Dorval Interchange project near Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport.
A portion of the hotel's parking lot was expropriated for the interchange project, which has been mired in cost overruns and delays.
The Administrative Tribunal of Quebec ruled that the Best Western had to be compensated for profits already lost as a result of the project, as well as for profits that it is expected to lose as long as the work continues.
The tribunal also ordered Transports Québec to build – and maintain – a 199-space parking lot for the hotel and pay both its legal expenses and the cost of experts hired during the process.
New budget, new timeline
The interchange project dates from 2007 and is to link the airport to Highway 20, which leads to downtown Montreal.
It was initially slated to cost $224 million, but the project was split into two sections in 2011.
Now the northern section alone is budgeted at $342 million, to be completed in two phases (one to be finished in 2017, the other in 2019).
No dollar figure has been attached to the southern section, nor has a date of completion. The southern section will include new transit links for the airport.