Behavioral health providers have started work on two new facilities that, when up and running, are expected to expand psychiatric services here dramatically.

Providence Health & Services has started clearing a site on the lower South Hill for a $34 million, 100-bed psychiatric hospital that it will operate with Fairfax Behavioral Health, of Kirkland, Wash. Meantime, Frontier Behavioral Health Services has broken ground on a $4.3 million, 15,000-square-foot outpatient facility in East Spokane. 

Construction crews now have torn down close to half of a former medical office building at the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and Browne Street to make way for the psychiatric hospital.

Liz DeRuyter, Providence Health & Services spokeswoman, says hospital officials now hope to open the new facility in the third quarter of 2018.

Some of the features the hospital will have include a gym for patients, courtyards, panoramic views, dedicated parking, and an ambulance bay, DeRuyter says.

Providence Health & Services is the Renton, Wash.-based parent of Spokane-based Providence Health Care, which operates Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center & Children’s Hospital, Providence Holy Family Hospital, and a number of other health care facilities in the Inland Northwest.

Fairfax operates a 157-bed, standalone psychiatric hospital in Kirkland and a 30-bed adult general psychiatric unit located in Everett.

A pre-development application recently filed with the city of Spokane calls for a three-story, 65,000-square-foot hospital to be built at the site, which previously was the home of the 62-year-old Providence-owned Fifth & Browne Medical Building.

Spokane-based NAC Architecture PS is the project architect. Jeani Natwick, a principal of NAC, says the first designs of the new hospital still are about two months away from being finished. Bouten Construction Inc., of Spokane, is the project’s general contractor. 

The Washington State Department of Health approved a Providence-Fairfax certificate-of-need application over competing proposals from Signature Healthcare Services in California and Springstone LLC of Kentucky for development of psychiatric facilities here.

The competing Signature and Springstone proposals both called for building 72-bed facilities in Spokane Valley at estimated costs of $22 million and $24 million, respectively.

Bart Eggen, an executive director at the state health department, told the Journal last year that a selection committee approved Providence’s proposal over the others because Providence already has extensive connections with the existing psychiatric community.

Said Eggen at the time of the selection, “Providence will have the ability to very quickly and seamlessly maintain site services. For that reason, it was in the best interest of the community. It was an obvious advantage for Sacred Heart.”

Carla Savalli, Frontier Behavioral Health’s director of communications, agrees with Eggen’s assessment. Frontier is the largest provider of mental health services in Spokane County.

“We do interact with them all the time, we have staff there (at Sacred Heart’s current psychiatric unit) all the time, so, yes, we’re an eager observer in the building of the new hospital. We will be happy to have the extra beds in the community.”

Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center & Children’s Hospital is the only hospital in Eastern Washington providing emergency and short-term inpatient psychiatric care.

Sacred Heart has 48 adult beds and 24 pediatric beds dedicated to that service, in addition to eight psychiatric beds in the Sacred Heart emergency department. 

However, it is regularly at capacity and unable to accept additional psychiatric patients from here and the broader region.

The Providence/Fairfax proposal calls for offering psychiatric services to children repeats as young as 5 years of age.

By comparison, Signature called for offering services to patients starting at age 12, while Springstone’s proposal called for the treatment of only adults at its proposed facility, another factor Eggen cited as to why Providence and Fairfax got the nod.

The new two-story facility that Frontier is developing at the southwest corner of Sprague and Lee Street will house an intensive outpatient center and other programs. Frontier’s intensive outpatient program currently is located at 17 E. First, on the periphery of downtown Spokane.

Bouten is the general contractor for the Frontier project as well, and NAC is the architect.

The new building will be just east of the Evergreen Club and is expected to be finished this fall.

Frontier has more than 700 employees operating in a total of 147,000 square feet of space at multiple facilities. In addition to the new building, Frontier has leased space in a multitenant office building at 505 N. Argonne, in Spokane Valley, and recently moved into a multitenant professional building north of Providence Holy Family Hospital, at 5901 N. Lidgerwood in North Spokane, Savalli says.

The Argonne office is Frontier’s second Spokane Valley location. It owns a two-story building at 317 N. Pines. That office provides outpatient services, including therapy, case management, and medication management for both youth and adults.

The Holy Family-area site is Frontier’s first service site on the North Side.

Frontier will have 17 locations throughout the Spokane area once the building on East Sprague is completed.

Founded as Spokane Mental Health, the organization has been a resource for people suffering from mental health issues since 1970.

Frontier gets funding from the Spokane Regional Behavioral Health Organization, Aging and Long Term Care of Eastern Washington, Spokane County United Way, and third-party contracts.