Danvers State Hospital - Demolition and Present State

Demolition and Present State

In December 2005, the property was sold to Avalon Bay Development, an apartment company. A lawsuit was filed to stave off the demolition of the hospital, including the Kirkbride building, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. However, this ultimately did not stop the process, and to some public outcry, demolition of most of the buildings began in January 2006, with the intent to build 497 apartments on the 77-acre (310,000 m2) site. The people who filed the lawsuit criticized how the case was handled by the courts.

By June 2006, all of the Danvers State Hospital buildings that were marked for demolition had been torn down, including all of the unused buildings and old homes on the lower grounds and all of the buildings on the hill. Despite the anger of many, the historic Kirkbride was also demolished, with only the outermost brick shell of the administration area (along with the G and D wards on each side) being propped up during demolition and construction while an entirely new structure was built behind and inside of it, leaving the historic Danvers Reservoir and the original brick shell. A replica of the original tower/steeple on the Kirkbride was built to duplicate what was removed around 1970 due to structural issues. (The first picture illustrates the original tower in 1893, the second and third pictures illustrate the new replica in 2006 and 7, and the fourth picture illustrates the short, fat, rebuilt one from 1970.) the Avalon Bay predicted that they would have properties available for rent/sale by Fall 2007.

However, on April 7, 2007, four of the apartment complex buildings and four of Avalon bay's construction trailers burned down in a large, mysterious fire visible from Boston, some seventeen miles (27 km) away. The mysterious conflagration was confined mostly to the buildings under construction on the eastern end, with damage to the remaining Kirkbride spires from catching fire due to excessive heat. An investigation was started concerning the cause of the mysterious fire. Avalon Bay provided a live webcam of the construction at the old site of the hospital at their website; however, the pictures cut out at approximately 2:03 AM the night of the fire, and the webcam was disabled, possibly due to the fire.

The underground tunnel leading up from the power plant still exists, blocked off at the top of the hill, however it is uncertain whether the tunnel network on top of the hill was actually removed or not during demolition and rebuilding.

While the initial outward appearance of the hospital's irreplaceable Kirkbride complex was preserved as far as the center of the old building is concerned, it is widely believed that the entire Kirkbride could have been further restored to some extent rather than demolished and replaced with the modern and comparatively cheap construction inside of it. Traverse City State Hospital in Michigan is an example of a successful similar renovation. The only thing left of the asylum is the cemeteries, some tunnels which are blocked off, and the brick shell of the administration and the D and G wings.