Recovery Center Opens at 12th and Clermont
New Recovery Center Opens in Denver Advancing Mental Health, Integrated Care and Creating a Healthier Community
Dr. Carl Clark, CEO, Mental Health Center of Denver
The Mental Health Center of Denver recently opened its new Recovery Center at 4455 E. 12th Ave. in Denver between Birch and Clermont. The Recovery Center, designed to provide both mental and primary care services, creates an integrated health care home to treat adult mental health consumer’s healthcare needs. It is also a major milestone for us as it gets us one step closer to achieving our vision of being able to serve all those in our community suffering with mental illness.
At any given time one in five people living in our state experienced a mental health disorder and many others know someone who is ill. Often times that person may be someone very close like a family member, friend or a co-worker. These are real people with real problems and they need real solutions to become healthy again.
![Denver Mental Health Rendering UPdated Sign](https://greaterparkhill.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/denver-mental-health-rendering-updated-sign.jpg)
In the last five years, the Mental Health Center of Denver has doubled the number of people we serve, but not space in which to serve them. We are forced to turn away two people for every person we admit. As the largest provider of mental health services in Denver, we needed more space to serve more people. With the Recovery Center open, it is expected that within three years, we can increase the number of adults served annually by approximately 2,000.
The Recovery Center is named based on our belief that people can, and do, recover from mental illness. It is now our organization’s flagship adult clinic. We have consolidated four smaller, over-crowded clinics into this one state-of-the-art facility.
One of our major objectives in building this new center was to configure spacious clinical workplaces with state-of-the-art medical technology, which will allow us to the very best mental health and substance abuse treatment but also integrated healthcare for some of Denver’s most vulnerable citizens. An entire wing of the Recovery Center is dedicated to primary care services and integrated healthcare. Integrated care is the health care delivery model of the future, and for the first time, Denver has a mental health treatment facility designed around how services are provided. For people with mental illness, this is especially important, as studies show that mental illness is associated with a shorter life span often related to other general healthcare needs going untreated.
At the Recovery Center people have access to primary care, laboratory, pharmacy, intensive case management, wellness education, supportive housing and benefits acquisition as well as other critical supports. Having every service offered located in one building eliminates the need to go to several locations and solves many transportation issues previously faced by our consumers, which in turn increases compliance and the chances for better health outcomes.
The Recovery Center also revitalizes an existing community, as the first major project to commence the re-use and revitalization of the former CU Health Sciences District. Formerly the Mt. Airy Psychiatric Hospital, the University of Colorado Hospital purchased the property in 1989, and it was renamed the North Pavilion. We purchased the 92,000-square-foot building in December 2010. Total acquisition of the property, renovation and construction costs totaled $15.5 million. The Mental Health Center of Denver gratefully acknowledges the support of the Colorado Health Foundation, The Anschutz Foundation, and the Caring for Colorado Foundation for initial funding for this capital project.
The Recovery Center construction team consists of City Projects, Inc. serving as owner’s representative, along with Davis Partnership as the architect and Taylor Kohrs as the general contractor. With the renovation complete and the Recovery Center open, it is destined to be the “greenest” mental health facility in the state and possibly the country, as we are in the process of pursuing Platinum LEED designation for the building. The Recovery Center’s sustainable design will serve as a national model of excellence for communities across the country to emulate.
The Mental Health Center of Denver is known nationally for its successful groundbreaking approach to mental health treatment. With Recovery Center, we are continuing that leadership role in promoting integrated care for persons with mental illness and focusing on prevention, health promotion and education, and improvements in overall health and wellbeing. We continue to be a primary source of comprehensive health-focused services for adults with mental illnesses in Denver.