Officials Break Ground on New Central Minnesota Mental Health Center Facility

(KNSI) – The Central Minnesota Mental Health Center broke ground on a brand new, 12,000 square foot facility Thursday morning.

Officials from the CMMHC, local police departments, state representatives, and Stearns County were on hand for the ceremony.

Melissa Huberty is the Human Services Administrator for Stearns County, says the building has been in the works for years. She says CentraCare started the conversation when bonding money was allocated from the state for the project, and it snowballed from there. She says this came together because of the partnerships formed between Stearns County, law enforcement, lawmakers, and the CMMHC. She says this is the culmination of all of those years of work. She says this area is unique because “Central Minnesota can do things that the metro area can’t because we partner so well and we are able to actually work with each other to make things like this happen.”

CMMHC Executive Director Rick Lee says the project is essentially a net neutral where no money changes hands. The building is being funded with bonding money that was appropriated during the 2018 session. With bonding money, only government entities can ask for it, so Stearns County applied for it, and the Central Minnesota Mental Health Center was able to secure private property to build on with a lease they will pay off.

The new building, located at 1321 13st Street North in St. Cloud, will double the number of available beds for people in need of a detox facility or in a major mental health crisis versus the sometimes chaotic environment of a hospital’s emergency room.

Lee says before the pandemic and through the course of the pandemic, emergency rooms were overrun with mental health cases. He says that environment is “not the ideal place for someone in a mental health crisis to have to go.”

CentraCare says the St. Cloud Hospital Emergency Trauma Center sees more than ten patients a day who are seeking mental health services. That’s more than 4,000 patients per year, making it the sixth most common reason for ER visits.

Lee adds that his excitement about the new residential crisis facility footprint is shared by CentraCare as CentraCare is developing a new unit for Emergency Psychiatric Assessment, Treatment, and Healing called EmPATH. The EmPATH unit will provide care for adult patients that transition them away from the ER and into a more calm and welcoming setting. This way, they can be assessed and observed while receiving tailored treatment plans during a mental health crisis.

Residents can stay for up to 47 hours at the EmPATH unit. According to Centracare, up to 80% of patients who utilize the EmPATH Unit can become stabilized within 24 hours due to the timely and patient-centric care provided.

The EmPATH unit is expected to be finished this summer. The new CMMHC facility should be done by January 1st, but officials say issues within the supply chain could delay that.

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KNSI Reporter Jake Judd contributed to this story.

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