Demolition fencing and signs now surround a 40-acre parcel of the former St. Thomas Psychiatric Hospital. “We’re working forward through the plan,” said Andrew Sloan, mayor of Central Elgin. “The fencing went up a couple of weeks ago and that’s through Infrastructure Ontario, so all I will say is things are moving rapidly.” The general contractor for the work is Green Infrastructure Partners from Markham, Ont. “There are two components of this deal,” said Rob Flack, Elgin-Middlesex-London Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP). “First is the 40 acres that have been hived off the total parcel – where the majority of the buildings are – will continue to be owned by Infrastructure Ontario, and that’s where the demolition will take place. The other 170 hectares, which is targeted to be sold through the RFP process (Requisition for Proposal), we’re still waiting on that.” The RFP was issued on March 2, 2026, through a competitive bidding process and closed on May 4, 2026. The Municipality says it is “currently reviewing the bids and expects to finalize the process over the next few months.”The fencing and groundbreaking come just weeks after Elgin County approved Central Elgin’s Official Plan Amendment (OPA). The approval represents the culmination of a year of planning and allows all parties to move forward.Now, what from the former will be preserved? “There’s a commemorative strategy and we’ll have more to release on that in the coming months,” said Sloan. “But I think everyone from the Municipality of Central Elgin, Minister Flack and the developers, they all looked at the site plans as having a very special heritage. I think that you’ll see that that’s going to be accommodated.” The CE Heritage Advisory Committee was blindsided by the decision to demolish the buildings back in April. They have provided their input and tell CTV News they would like to be kept in the loop about future plans. Flack believes they will be involved. “I’m hoping to continue to work with them and they’ve certainly advocated hard and Infrastructure. Ontario knows so,” said Flack. “Let’s get them in there, identify what it is they deem important within reason, and to preserve it as best we can. What I’m going to suggest to ever successfully wins the tender to build homes is, if there’s going to be parkland in there, maybe a nice historical site there representing the history of that site of the hospital lands.” Flack says this project is going to take a long time and won’t be complete in a matter of weeks. “That demolition is not going to interfere ultimately, with the building of 3,000 homes,” said Flack, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister. “With Volkswagen we have 3,000 jobs coming to Saint Thomas, Elgin County, and Middlesex County. 30,000 jobs across the province and spinoff or tertiary jobs. We need housing in the worst way, and this is a great repurpose of that land. This can’t happen soon enough.”
