Levin hospitals finally up for sale
LEVIN’S long-closed old Kimberley Centre and the town’s old hospital in Liverpool St are to be put up for sale by tender in March.
The centre, on the southern outskirts of Levin, closed in 2006 after 60 years when the last 250 of its intellectually disabled residents were transferred to community housing.
It opened in 1945 as the Levin Farm and Mental Deficiency Colony and grew to become what was claimed to be the biggest hospital in the southern hemisphere for intellectually disabled people. In the 1970s, when it was renamed the Kimberley Hospital and Training Centre, it had a population of more than 700.
The 48.6ha campus has value of $3.85 million.
NAI Harcourts Palmerston North agent Dave Marriott said there were 82 buildings on the property– a mixture of accommodation buildings, community facilities, storage areas and even a chapel.
They were built mainly in the 1960s and 1970s and many were quite run down as they had not been used for a long time.
He expected interest range of buyers.
Many nearby properties are used for market gardening and Marriott said the land could be used for horticulture or grazing.
It could also appeal who might convert it blocks.
It was zoned rural and Horowhenua
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wide to developers into lifestyle District Council did not favour more intensive residential development of a block this far out of town.
However, the property was linked to Levin’s water supply and sewerage system.
Parts of the Kimberley Centre are now leased to Riding for the Disabled, Tsunami Stuios and a market gardener.
The old Levin Hospital was closed in 2007 when a new Horowhenua Health Centre was opened next door.
The 1500 square metre hospital was built in three stages between 1964 and 1976 and stands on a 8.187ha site.
The hospital had four wards, a maternity ward, two operating theatres, a physiotherapy unit, a laboratory, chapel, kitchen, stores, mortuary, boilerhouse, ambulance bay, workshop and a two-storey administration block.
MidCentral District Health Board spokesman Dennis Geddis said the hos- pital was too big and expensive to keep going and it was no longer suited to today’s medical needs.
It had taken years to clear the way for sale as the health board had to go through the complex government process for disposing of surplus property, which included making it available for possible land claim settlements, he said.
The property is subdivided into three lots with the hospital on a 4.9ha block, a vacant 2.2ha site in Liverpool St and another 9283sqm block at the back of the site off Hinemoa St.
The vacant land in front of the old hospital in Liverpool St was also expected to command good levels of interest.
Marriott said the hospital property would be put up for tender with two options.
‘‘They can tender for the entire 8.1878 hectares as one parcel of land or they can tender for the just the hospital or just the vacant land parcel in front of it.’’