Skip to content

Woodlands: A timeline of change

- The institution opened in May 1878 as the Provincial Asylum for the Insane and housed anyone with a mental illness. Its name was changed to the Public Hospital for the Insane in 1897. - At the turn of the century, its capacity was 310 people.

- The institution opened in May 1878 as the Provincial Asylum for the Insane and housed anyone with a mental illness. Its name was changed to the Public Hospital for the Insane in 1897.

- At the turn of the century, its capacity was 310 people.

- In the 1930s the focus changed to housing people with developmental disabilities.

- Renamed Woodlands School in 1950 in recognition of its emphasis on education and rehabilitation. Woodlands School housed more than 1,400 residents in 1959, according to the We Survived Woodlands website.

- Woodlands School's population declined through the 1970s and 1980s because of a move towards deinstitutionalization.

- Woodlands School closed in 1996.

- British Columbia Buildings Corporation consulted with the community and developed a master plan for the site, which documented all aspects of the development including trees to be saved, amenities to be provided, type of housing to be built and the order in which the various parcels of land would be developed.

- In 2003, the British Columbia Buildings Corporation sold 51.4 acres of the Woodlands site to the Onni Group for $18 million.

- The first residents moved into the Victoria Hill development in 2007.

- Several of the Woodlands buildings have been retained at Victoria Hill: the Nurses Lodge is now a condo complex; the Boiler House is now an amenity space for the project and the recipient of a Heritage B.C. award; the Carpentry Shop is an amenity space that is rented out for meetings and other functions that can use a large room.

- While the city and the developer explored potential uses for the Centre Block, which dated back to 1879 and 1889, fires destroyed much of the building in July 2008. Only the tower survived.

- Oct. 18, 2011 - the Centre Block tower is demolished.