QuickTake:

Known as a stabilization center, the facility will serve as an emergency room for people in mental health and addiction crises. The project is part of a behavioral health campus the county is planning with PeaceHealth, to be sited near RiverBend hospital.

Lane County commissioners hired a firm to design and plan a stabilization center that will help people in mental and addiction crises. 

The county’s $4 million agreement with Portland-based TVA Architects is a critical step in the work, which is part of a wider plan the county has with PeaceHealth to serve the region’s behavioral health needs. Commissioners unanimously approved the deal at their meeting Tuesday, Jan. 13.

The agreement will cover conceptual design, land use and planning, and construction administration services. The county still needs to hire a general contractor to build the facility.

The county has been planning the project for years. In 2014, officials identified the need for such a center in the community, and in 2022 assigned a full-time staffer to the effort.

“We’ve been at this for a long, long time,” Commissioner Pat Farr said. “We are on the right course.”

The project is planned along International Way inside Springfield’s urban growth boundary. County officials will seek an annexation of the site into the city of Springfield.

The county owns two parcels that total nearly 18 acres. That land will be the site of the stabilization center and also a 96-bed psychiatric hospital that PeaceHealth is planning.

When both projects are finished, the region will have a behavioral health campus that can serve patients and also connect them with long-term services near PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend.

The stabilization center for people in an immediate mental health or addiction crisis is also intended to take pressure off hospital emergency rooms, which currently treat people in crisis.

The 24-hour center will help people who arrive with no appointment. People could seek care directly, or police and first responders could transport people for mental health care instead of jail.

From there, the center can offer treatment and then guide patients to follow-up care, whether it’s a hospital stay at PeaceHealth or treatment at an outpatient provider or other service.

The project has secured about $17 million in funding from county, state and federal sources. Trillium Community Health Plan, a Medicaid insurer, also provided $922,000. 

Two years ago, the project’s budget for startup costs was $30 million. The design work will result in updated estimates.

The work is expected to take several years. County officials will get an updated timeline in February and the agreement has a projected substantial completion date of April 2029.

PeaceHealth plans to purchase property from Lane County for its planned Timber Springs Behavioral Health Hospital at the site.

Jim Murez, a spokesman for PeaceHealth, told Lookout Eugene-Springfield the hospital is in the “final stages” of purchasing the property from the county. PeaceHealth is pursuing a certificate of need for the hospital from the state and is on track to open the hospital in 2028, Murez said.

The behavioral health campus is the subject of pending litigation, though. Neighboring landowners have sued the county and PeaceHealth in Marion County Circuit Court, challenging the state law used to site the project. 

TVA Architects has a wide portfolio of projects in the state and region, including Matthew Knight Arena and Friendly Hall at the University of Oregon. 

For two decades, Ben Botkin’s journalism career saw him criss-cross the West, a path with stops in rural Idaho, Las Vegas and, now, finally, Lane County. Ben reported on local government and the statehouse in Idaho before he moved to the Bulletin in Bend and covered education in central Oregon.

Then, for four years, he covered Clark County government, which has oversight over the Las Vegas Strip, and served as the lead political reporter during the 2016 election cycle. During that time, Ben wrote about the county’s child welfare agency, law enforcement, the start of Nevada’s medical marijuana industry and homeland security. His reporting sparked the criminal indictments and convictions of three government officials, including a city animal control supervisor convicted of animal cruelty.

He also covered national stories like the 2016 armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon and the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas.

Since 2018, Ben has reported on Oregon state government, first for the Statesman-Journal in Salem and then for The Lund Report, a Portland-based nonprofit that covers health care. His reporting on gaps in children’s health coverage led to state Medicaid policy changes.

Most recently, Ben worked more than two years at the Oregon Capital Chronicle, where he covered criminal justice, health and human services. His work often incorporates the voices of vulnerable Oregonians from all walks of life.

As Lookout’s Politics & Policy Correspondent, Ben digs up the most intriguing and relevant stories about how Lane County decisions impact residents.