The Capital Regional Hospital District has reached an agreement to buy the former Blanshard Elementary School property at 950 Kings Rd. from the Greater Victoria School District for $5.8 million.
With the purchase, the hospital district can consolidate land for its planned 320-unit seniors residential care facility, to be known as the Summit at Quadra Village
The facility at 955 Hillside Ave. is for seniors who need complex and dementia care. It will replace two aging facilities: Oak Bay Lodge, built in 1970, on Cadboro Bay Road in Oak Bay, which has 247 publicly subsidized units, and the 73-unit Mount Tolmie Hospital, built in 1964, on Richmond Road in Saanich.
The hospital district announced the purchase of the 1.4-hectare property at 955 Hillside two years ago but that purchase didn’t include the parcel of land on which the school building sits and is currently leased to a private post-secondary education company.
No specific project is planned for the site at 950 Kings and its long-term development will be subject to further planning and community consultations, the hospital district said in a statement. Some of the property will be used during the Summit’s construction as a staging ground for construction materials, meeting space and for parking.
Victoria Coun. Ben Isitt, council liaison to the Hillside-Quadra neighbourhood, and a member of the hospital board, hopes some space, including possibly the school gym as well as green space might be made available to the community.
“I think potentially it could be really good news for the neighbourhood because there’s options for a community use along side a hospital use on that land,” Isitt said, adding he’s hopeful the city will be able to work with the hospital board to provide some sort of community benefit on the site.
“For 50 years, these lands were used for school purposes and there was a feeling [in the community] there should be something there … whether it’s repurposing the school gym for use by the community centre or using the grounds for gardening or other community uses. Maybe a section of blacktop could be used by the youth for skateboarding,” Isitt said.
“So I’m wanting to have those discussions with the CRD for what uses are there for that land.”
Purchase of the property will complement development of the Summit project and provide strategic value to the hospital district, its chairman said in a statement.
The Greater Victoria School District will hold a public information meeting Nov. 23 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. to provide additional information.
A public engagement process related to the design of the Summit will begin in December.
Construction of the Summit is expected to begin in late summer of 2016 and be completed in the spring of 2019.
