‘Transformative opportunity’: Central Elgin brainstorming plans for former Psychiatric Hospital land

Central Elgin council is brainstorming a new future for the St. Thomas Psychiatric Hospital (STPH) lands. CTV London's Brent Lale has the details.

Central Elgin council is beginning to brainstorm ideas on what a new community would look like on the former St. Thomas Psychiatric Hospital (STPH) lands.

During a vision session this week, council met with consultants from NPG Planning to learn how they can craft a future 6,000-10,000-person residential and commercial community on the 416-acre property.

“It is a transformative opportunity and it’s so important to start with vision and ideas,” said Mary Lou Tanner, president of NPG Planning. “We’re going to hear from the community much later through this process with robust conversations, so we can get this right for Central Elgin.”

The opening session took input on housing, commercial, transportation, employment, parks and recreation, and community facilities.

“We’re looking at how the vacant Psychiatric Hospital lands are going to develop, where the houses are going to go, where the parks are going to go, if there’s going to be schools there - which we hope - is there going to be a community centre? Is there going to be shopping areas and restaurants and stores, bike lanes, sidewalks and how people are going to live, work and get around,” said Tanner.

Currently, Infrastructure Ontario (IO) still owns the land, and Central Elgin believes that IO is going to be selling the full piece of property.

There has been talk that IO may hold back more than 120 acres, including the existing buildings for government use, but that is not confirmed.

“We will be focusing on the land east of the buildings as it is shovel ready,” said Andrew Sloan, Central Elgin mayor. “We don’t know when Infrastructure Ontario will take the land to market but we’re hoping for some clarity in early February. Now with an election likely it has probably set us back 30 days.”

This past spring, the Doug Ford government said it was setting aside $100 million to repurpose surplus sites like the former St. Thomas Psychiatric Hospital grounds.

In the March 26 provincial budget announcement, the Site Preparation Pilot Program was announced.

“It costs the province, costs the taxpayers close to a million dollars a year just to have it sit there and do really nothing,” said Rob Flack, Elgin-Middlesex London MPP. “It’s time that these sites such as the St. Thomas hospital lands are repurposed, and I would get my vote towards housing and hopefully that’s what Infrastructure Ontario decides to do.”

Other than a few Hollywood films that have used the location over the past few years, the site has been vacant for more than a decade.

Now it’s time to prepare for the anticipated economic boom with Power Co building the Volkswagen battery plant.

“There’s a whole bunch of pieces that need to come together in terms of getting the servicing,” said Tanner. “The lands are currently owned by the province, so there needs somebody needs to buy them from the province, but council needs to get the plan together so that we can start to work with the development community to get housing built.”

She anticipates that could be done in about a year, “The battery plant is scheduled to open in 2027, so our goal is to have the first phase of housing ready to align with that.”

Currently, Central Elgin has servicing for about 400 homes to get started.

“There’s two ways of calling it phase one and my phase one is a little bigger than I think Mary Lou’s,” said Sloan. “For the first 400 houses we have servicing, and that’s why we’re trying to link that with Power Co to say, ‘We’ll have that ability and we’ll be able to provide homes for people in the short term,’ that’s the 2027 part.”

They’ll essentially be building a community with the population of Aylmer, Ont. but packing that into a few hundred acres.

“If you look at it as a phased approach, I think we’re well able to handle that,” said Sloan. “If you look at the total build out in 2044, it’s a bit of a big bite, but I think we’ll take it in smaller pieces and obviously look to the community for their input as well.”

Tanner calls the project “an exciting opportunity.”

“There will be there’s a lot of jobs coming to Central Elgin and to this broader area with the battery plant as well as the spin off jobs,” she said. “Those workers are going to need a place to live, and we want to create a community for them to call home.”