Eight years after announcing the project, Denver officials unveiled Thursday a new behavioral health center in Sun Valley, a facility that will focus on treating, stabilizing and supporting people experiencing a mental health crisis.

The building, now officially dubbed the Behavioral Health Solutions Center, is one of the first of its kind in the United States, officials said at a press conference Thursday. Touted as a way to actually treat and help people in a crisis, rather than sending them to jail or to an emergency room, the 46-bed facility will offer immediate help and short-term stays for patients referred by first responders or certain mental health providers. 

“The strategy under all of this … is to keep people out of the jail system, to keep them out of the hospital, to get them here, where we’re going to set them up for the greatest success,” Bob McDonald, the executive director of Denver’s Department of Public Health and Environment, said at the press conference outside of the facility. “That’s the long-term strategy.”

The center, which is only open to people with referrals, “is a collaborative and innovative facility that we believe will be a game changer for behavioral health care in the city and county of Denver,” Jeff Holliday, a manager with the Denver health department, told reporters.

The building was previously a city-run residential child care facility. After the center was announced in 2013, the city spent $7 million renovating it, Holliday said, on top of $3.4 million in annual operating costs.

All treatment there is voluntary, and the facility has three tiers of immediate support for patient. First is the triage clinic, where patients can be brought by first responders for immediate help. The triage center offers up to 24 hours of services, though stabilization may not take that long and patients can leave whenever they want, officials said.

The second is the 16-bed “crisis stabilization clinic.” Depending on a patient’s circumstances and crisis, he or she may have the option to stay for up to five more days, during which time they’ll be evaluated, begin therapeutic services and receive prescribed medication.

The first floor of the building, which stands at 2929 W. 10th Avenue in west Denver, is dedicated to the first two tiers. It looks like the office for a primary care clinic, with single-occupancy bedrooms and bathrooms built around provider stations, a common room, a laundry room and a small bank of lockers that each contain phone chargers. Doors lead from the cafeteria in one corner of the floor to a courtyard with astroturf and a basketball court.

The third floor houses the 30-day “transitional shelter.” It, too, is ringed by bedrooms and bathrooms, with common rooms in the middle. The shelter is for “people recovering from a crisis,” according to a city press release describing the facility, and staff and patients can use those 30 days to secure ongoing health care treatment, plus transportation and even housing, if needed.

It’s possible for a patient to skip the five-day stay — and go from immediate crisis to 30-day stay — said Marissa VanDover, the associate director of the Mental Health Center of Denver who will oversee the behavioral health center. But it will likely be rare, she said.

The need for this type of facility is great, officials said at the press conference and in interviews Thursday. In its press release, the city noted a 2019 survey that found more than 94,000 residents, amounting to 12.6% of Denver’s population, “reported not receiving help or counseling for mental health issues.”

Holliday said that the facility was modeled off of a similar one in Seattle. That helped not only in establishing programming and getting an idea of how to run it, he said, but it also gave them insight into how to work with the surrounding neighborhood. There was some concern among Sun Valley residents about patients with a history of violent crimes and patients leaving and entering the facility or using nearby public transit.

Conversations with Sun Valley residents took a year to smooth out, Holliday said, and there’s now an advisory committee to give the neighborhood an ongoing voice and forum. The facility won’t take any referrals for patients with a history of violent crimes, and it will provide supervision to any who make the short walk to the nearby bus stop. 

‘We’re going to manage this in a way where it adds to the value of the community,” McDonald said at the press conference.