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January 16, 2011 State to sell old mental hospital

For sale: a former mental hospital just listed as a historic site, a juvenile jail and a handful of office buildings and other state properties that are vacant or soon will be vacated. At 225 acres, one of the largest properties on the list is a former state mental hospital in Sedro-Woolley. It's now partly occupied by a few nonprofits and government agencies. Called Northern State Hospital, the psychiatric hospital was built in 1909 and operated until 1973.

January 11, 2011 Medfield State Hospital contaminant picture to become clearer after meeting

The state will present a report on the sources, types, and extent of the contamination at site of the former Medfield State Hospital Thursday night. The town and state expects to turn the area into residential housing, but must overcome a number of environmental hurdles first.

December 27, 2010 Former Va asylum converted into upscale condos

Standing shoulder to shoulder in Room 203, the three women from different parts of the country compared their memories. Each took a job at the old Western State Hospital in successive years: 1957, 1958 and 1959. On Sunday they returned to the building for an open house of the former asylum, now the site of some of Staunton's most lavish condominiums.

December 15, 2010 End of an era at Allentown State Hospital

The official closure of Allentown State Hospital on Wednesday was part rally for residents asserting their independence and part farewell to a century-old relic of how society once regarded mental illness.

December 8, 2010 Closing of Dorothea Dix Hospital marks failure of state reforms

Dorothea Dix Hospital isn't closed yet, but it stopped admitting patients last week and is in the process of transferring all but about 30 high-risk patients, people who committed crimes and are housed in a maximum-security unit, to other state hospitals in Butner and Goldsboro. DHHS Secretary Lanier Cansler has announced that these patients, too, will be relocated within a few months.

December 7, 2010 Patients of State Hospital Get Respect Posthumously

For a century or more an empty weed choked lot and the city park next door in Sparks' Conductor Heights neighborhood served as the final resting place for 800 or more souls, patients of the adjacent Nevada Mental Health Institute. They lie here in unmarked, even unrecorded graves. Many of them literally abandoned in life, receiving no more respect in death.

November 16, 2010 State’s new mental hospital offers private bedrooms, outdoor spaces

The new Oregon State Hospital is getting ready for its first wave of patients, who will all have private bedrooms and access to “treatment malls.” Nearly 100 patients are scheduled to leave cramped and dreary wards in the existing 127-year-old hospital in Salem in January and move to the new facility, called “Harbors.”

November 9, 2010 From Ex-Mental Hospital to a New Mixed-Use Life

Until it closed in 1989, the Traverse City State Hospital was among the largest employers in this small city in northern Michigan. Two new commercial and residential construction projects are bringing the old asylum, renamed the Village at Grand Traverse Commons, closer to regaining that distinction.

October 15, 2010 Preston may save millions on former hospital cleanup

Cleanup costs at the former Norwich State Hospital property may be millions less than the town first believed, First Selectman Robert Congdon said. Preston bought the hospital property from the state for $1 in March 2009, and is trying to plan its development in a sluggish economy. The town is responsible for its cleanup if it can’t find a developer.

October 13, 2010 With Syracuse Developmental Center deal dead, city school superintendent unveils 'Plan B'

Syracuse schools Superintendent Dan Lowengard said he will brief the school board today on an alternative plan to move children out of Dr. Weeks Elementary School early in 2011 to allow long-awaited renovations to begin.