NEMHC

[I'm less than thrilled to find that my original entry on this location has been deleted by someone.]

The 56-year-old Northeastern Mental Health Centre (NEMHC) became surplus in 2011 when the former North East Mental Health Centre and North Bay and District Hospital merged onto one site to become the North Bay Regional Health Centre, located on Highway 17 West.

The site was once slated to become a regional jail, including a 50-bed secure-treatment unit for male offenders and a 192-bed pod for remanded inmates and short-term sentenced inmates. The proposed facility, announced in 2000 by the Conservative government while former Nipissing MPP Mike Harris was premier, was to replace the existing North Bay Jail as well as Monteith Correctional Facility near Timmins.

The project hit a snag when it was determined it would cost an additional $15-million to extend city and water services to the site.

The psychiatric hospital building has sat empty for two years.

Before demolition crews arrived on site, Infrastructure Ontario circulated the property to determine if there were any further government requirements for re-use of the entire site. There were no takers.

"The property isn't currently for sale at this time. We have done some circulation for potential government use and we're still in that process," Giffen said Tuesday.

The prime real estate land will be left vacant and the land where the hospital once stood will be grass.

Demoilition took place January 2013.

Original writeup from July 7, 2011:

This was an amazing time spent on a massive property with at least eight wards. You could spend an entire day here and not see everything it had to offer (power plant, morgue, cafeteria, etc.)

Barbed wire fencing, mesh-grill windows, no hiding place for your car and 24-hour security made this a rather uninviting location to visit.

On this given day I was able to drive right up to the parking lot and blend in with the contractors who were there removing equipment. They didn't mind my presence and one fellow said I might as well walk on in because everyone else was.

This visit was not without some close calls. I passed a hallway and saw a guard walking with his back to me. During an other instance I heard an elevator squeak to my floor and the doors opening. Hiding in a doorway where I would surely have been spotted, I heard the wheels of a cart being wheeled out of the elevator and coming towards me.

I thought of what I might say to this person so as to explain my presence fortunately just like in a movie the person turned down a hall just before reaching the room I was in.

I was only able to explore one of the approximately eight buildings on site as they were open for contractor access while security kept a close watch.

It is back to being secure now. Given the absence of any graffiti and vandalism, I have chosen not to name the location in this thread.

Thanks for taking the time to view my thread.