‘Public were blindsided’: Province unveils surprise plans to demolition 22 historic former psychiatric buildings in Central Elgin

The former psychiatric hospital buildings outside of St. Thomas will be demolished, to the dismay of heritage advocates. CTV’s Brent Lale explains why.

Heritage advocates were shocked to learn Infrastructure Ontario (IO) plans to demolish the 22 historic buildings on the former St. Thomas Psychiatric Hospital lands.

“We were obviously very disturbed,” said Sally Martyn, secretary of Heritage Central Elgin (HCE) which is a committee appointed by the Municipality of Central Elgin (MCE).

The $71 million plan to tear down the buildings in favour of housing was revealed by the province in letter to Don MacLeod, chief administrative officer of MCE on April 9.

“The buildings have been declared beyond their useful life and pose a health and safety risk in their current state,” wrote Amita Patkar, senior vice president of strategy and feasibility for IO.

“It has further been determined that the costs would be significant to adaptively-reuse the buildings and that the demolition of the former hospital buildings will allow for the proposed development outcomes to be accomplished, including housing and community uses,” she added.

That decision led to frustration from HCE who believe the buildings are structurally sound.

“We are fully aware that there are certain developers who would love to get a hold of it and turn it into housing right away,” said Martyn.

She added, “We felt that that was a perfect repurpose of the building. We were in on a tour in January and it’s still an extremely strong building. The walls are extremely thick. The inner walls are all brick. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with the structure at all. I can’t imagine most of the ratepayers would be happy to hear that $71 million was going to be used when they could sell it for money and earn money instead of wasting money.”

Martyn says HCE has had conversations with Housing and Municipal Affairs Minster and Elgin-Middlesex-London MPP Rob Flack, who knows their stance.

“With respect to the buildings, I’ve talked with the Heritage Committee, understand their concerns and I’ve shared their concerns,” said Flack. “After the RFP [request for proposal] process, if there’s potential to work with the developer, I’ll help facilitate those discussions.”

Central Elgin Council passed its official plan amendment (OPA) this month which envisions 3,500 homes and 9,000 people on the 440-acre site just south of St. Thomas.

They did so with opposition from their appointed heritage committee, and MCE councillors Michelle Graham and Morgaine Griffin who tried to let the HCE make its case for repurposing the buildings.

Four councillors shot down the motion to allow the HCE members to speak at council.

Griffin also claimed that the decision was made by council despite 73 per cent of people who attended public engagement meetings wanted to keep the buildings.

“We’ve got this data from the public and it tells us that people don’t want this thing,” said Griffin. “We haven’t even heard business cases yet for the possibility of doing something else with the building and we really want to try that before we go forward. I think the public were blindsided.”

Griffin also agreed with HCE that council’s decision to pass the OPA was hasty.

“We’ve got people telling us we’ve got these high price figures that it’s going to cost, let’s say, for example, $71 million to demolish the buildings,” said Griffin.

“We also have developers saying they’d really like to work with the buildings, and we haven’t even had a chance to hear from them about how much they think it would cost to rework the buildings. Until we have a chance to hear about those numbers, I don’t think it’s even fair to really say that the demolishing is the best option for tax dollars,” she said.

The only way for MCE to revisit this is if one of Mayor Andrew Sloan, Deputy Mayor Todd Noble, or councillors David Conners or Norman Watson were to bring forward a motion to council to reconsider and reopen discussions to potentially change the vote.

In 2008, the property was identified as a provincial heritage property of provincial significance per the Ontario Heritage Act (OHA). The municipality designated the property as a municipal heritage property under the OHA (part IV) in 2019.

However, in December 2023, the property was exempted from the standards and guidelines for provincial heritage properties (S&Gs) to advance provincial priorities, which may include housing and other development outcomes.

“They [the buildings] are extremely significant,” said Martyn.

“Not just to Central Elgin but all of Canada because they were the Air Force training base for the Commonwealth. Plus, William Lyon Somerville was a prominent architect who designed the building. He used Queenston Limestone, which was a very important building material at the time. Jacob Jones, who was the director of the College of Art in Toronto, was the sculptor who did the sculptures on the building. All we can do is advise as a committee, so it’s up to council to make that decision but we were very disappointed in that they didn’t even allow a discussion on it,” Martyn added. The hospital opened for patient care in 1939 and then patients were relocated to other facilities across the province for the duration of the Second World War as the Royal Canadian Air Force trained there.

it reverted back to a psychiatric hospital in November 1945.

It continued until 1997 when St. Joseph’s Health Care in London took over governance of the hospital.

It continued in operation until a new hospital facility was built on the north end of the property in 2013.

Since then, it has been a popular location for film and television shoots such as ‘Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark,’ ‘The Boys’ and ‘See’ starring Jason Mamoa.

Flack believes even if the buildings are not saved, elements will be preserved and incorporated into the new community.

“Culture and heritage have given me their word that whatever artifacts, whatever pieces of statue, brick and granite, we will need to be able to preserve that,” said Flack. “I will work with the Heritage Committee as best I can and as logically as I can, to help preserve everything and anything they deem historical and needed.”

IO says MCE will lead development planning to meet local needs while working with the province to ensure a mix of uses for the community.

Demolition permits are in the works, and the RFP process will be completed by June.

“Per IO’s agreement with the municipality, IO is procuring a contractor to begin site-clearing activities this spring, with work expected to take about two years,” Todd McCarthy, acting minister of infrastructure told HCE.

“We understand IO and the municipality are amenable to the preservation or commemoration of certain elements and features of the former hospital given the site’s deep cultural and historical significance,” he added.

Flack has been advocating for the transformation of the property since 2022. He sees a mix of businesses, and all sorts of housing on the lands.

“There’s going to be social housing, affordable housing, people that need a hand up,” said Flack. “There’s going to be single family homes, condominiums on all kinds of housing for a growing region. You drive by and it’s there are nice buildings, but they are not being used. We need people in homes, and we were it was costing us $1 million a year to keep up those lands. This is a good news story for Elgin County for sure.”