When I was a teen I had a job that made me drive by the Pilgrim State Mental Hospital, a huge property that  housed the insane but was closed down. The huge property in the middle of Long Island is on prime real estate and sat  empty. It looks like these old psychiatric asylums are  now being converted to housing units all across the country.

Even the ominous Danvers State Hospital in Danvers, Mass., once described as “the scariest building in the world” and a favorite destination of ghost-hunting thrill-seekers, soon will be home to laptop-toting latte drinkers. “There’s obviously a lot of notoriety associated with the site,” said Scott Dale, a vice president at AvalonBay Communities Inc., which is constructing 497 luxury apartments and condominiums. “We think at the end of the day, that will be helpful.”

No units are on the market yet, but Dale expressed confidence that occupancy won’t be hurt by the property’s jaded past, including a cemetery with some unmarked graves — one reminder of the sad history of treatment of the mentally ill.

The formula has been successful elsewhere.

Six hundred would-be buyers signed up for the first 60 houses built at the site of the former Dammasch State Hospital, a $500 million project in Wilsonville, Ore., 20 miles south of Portland, city officials said. In Traverse City, Mich., developers of a former asylum overlooking Lake Michigan have down payments in hand from buyers looking for condos, and a waiting list should those buyers bow out.

Rents at the 500-unit Octagon, the former New York City Lunatic Asylum on Manhattan’s Roosevelt Island, are 10 percent higher than expected, developer Bruce Becker said. Studio apartments in the $170 million development start at $1,700.

“It certainly still has a slight mystery to it, but I wouldn’t say scary or haunted,” said Rebecca Shaw, who is moving with her boyfriend into a one-bedroom unit at the Octagon next month. via The Modesto Bee.

Related posts:

1. Illegal Housing Crackdown in Quincy Massachusetts Yielding Positive Results
2. Do You Know of The Messiest Home in the Country?
3. Housing Starts Down 54.2 Percent For April, 2009
4. The Peter Cooper – Stuyvesant Town Blunder Soon To Be A Bankruptcy?