Demolition of boarded-up homes underway in Windsor’s west end

Demolition work takes place on a number of vacant, boarded-up homes in the 600-block of Indian Road in Windsor at the base of the Ambassador Bridge. March 13, 2025. (Rusty Thomson/AM800 News)

Over a dozen long-time boarded up homes at the base of the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor are coming down.

The City of Windsor has issued 14 demolition permits to remove homes in the 600-block of Indian Road between Wyandotte Street and Mill Street and on Rosedale Avenue, work that is already underway, according to a city official.

Five other demolition applications for additional boarded-up homes are still being processed.

The demolition is part of Phase 2 of the Canadian Transit Company’s (CTC), owners of the Ambassador Bridge, plan to construct a secondary plaza at the foot of the bridge.

The new commercial vehicle inspection plaza is allowed under a federal permit issued in 2017.

The homes are owned by the CTC and have been the subject of an over decade-long legal battle between the bridge owners and the City of Windsor that focused on bridge developments in the Sandwich Town neighbourhood.

Ward 2 Coun. Fabio Costante said the neighbourhood and its residents want to see a resolution to this challenging issue.

“We’re going through a phase right now, and there’s a lot of moving parts and a lot involved here. I’m hopeful we come to a resolution on this, and I know it’s something the neighbourhood would welcome,” he says.

Costante added there are so many implications tied to vacant homes that have been deteriorating for a decade, including quality of life.

“It’s not just the deterioration of the home and health and safety hazards that some could present. There are rodents, there’s squatting, and there’s sometimes illegal activity that could happen,” he says. “These all become neighbourhood nuisances and issues that have to be monitored and regularly looked after.”

According to Costante, the hope is as these boarded-up homes get knocked down, some of the neighbour nuisances like rodents and squatting are mitigated.

“There’s still many homes on Edison, Bloomfield, Brock, Felix, etc. that are boarded up and in the same condition. Until they’re all eventually dealt with, we’re still going to have some of these neighbourhood nuisance issues,” he added.

The City of Windsor and the Canadian Transit Company remain in negotiations on several outstanding issues and legal matters involving homes in the west end owned by the CTC and the conditions attached to the federal permit.

— Rusty Thomson/AM800 News