The centerpiece of plans to recalibrate mental health treatment in Palm Beach County moved closer to reality Wednesday with a government board’s decision to buy nearly 10 acres north of Southern Boulevard and west of Florida’s Turnpike.
The Health Care District of Palm Beach County agreed to pay $16.7 million, 32 percent above appraised value, to build a crisis stabilization center at 100 N. Benoist Farms Road.
The cost to build the center is estimated at $66 million, up from $60 million in January. But now the district has projected a total project budget of $145 million that includes land, design and $27 million for contingencies.
All of the money except $10 million pledged by Palm Beach County would come from the Health Care District’s reserves, which approach $200 million. The district, established in 1988, levies a countywide property tax and pays for Trauma Hawk response helicopters, school nurses, a hospital in Belle Glade and a network of clinics countywide.
Board members in unanimously approving the purchase Wednesday agreed to pay more than the site’s $12.5 million appraised value because of the scarcity of suitable land away from residential development and the need to move quickly to lessen the impact of continual construction cost increases.
Still, construction would not begin until 2027, with completion scheduled for summer 2029. Under an agreement with the county, it must be up and running by year-end 2029.
What the center would do
The center would accept walk-in patients and those in mental health crisis or police custody. Its aim is to find solutions that would avoid jail or forced hospital stays, said Health Care District CEO Darcy Davis in an interview with Stet.
In a pilot program called COAST to treat patients brought by police, the district reports that it relied on involuntary hospitalization just 2 percent of the time.
The mental health arena is a new fit for the district, which brought in a consultant in 2023 to assess the county’s mental health care system and suggest alternatives.
“If our mission is to fill the gaps in Palm Beach County and be that health care safety gap,” Davis said, “how can we ignore the biggest need in Palm Beach County, which is mental health?”
The consultant recommended the Crisis Now model, which focuses on meeting three simple needs: someone to call, someone to respond and somewhere to go.
The crisis stabilization center would be the first place to go, offering 23-hour observation, addiction receiving services and short-term crisis stabilization.
The aim is not to replace beds in psych units but to supplement them, Davis said. The crisis center would have about two dozen beds, half for juveniles, but room for about 46 patients to be evaluated in “chairs.”
“We’re trying to get people to stop thinking of the cost of the bed,” Davis said. “The feasibility study shows we’re well over-bedded already.”
Nationwide, district officials say, the model has achieved 35 percent reductions in a community’s cost of delivering mental health care.
Site features abandoned dog kennels
The Benoist Farms Road site beat out a 6.3-acre site owned by the district at the Healey Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Riviera Beach. If built there, the center would have been forced to share space with the nursing home, a difficult combination. The district also would have had to pay $15 million for a parking garage.
The 9.67-acre site off of Southern Boulevard is in an industrial area but centrally located, a critical consideration as it will serve residents from Boca Raton to Tequesta and as far west as Belle Glade.
It still contains the remnants of its original use: about 15 abandoned wooden structures built in 1965 as dog kennels for the Palm Beach Kennel Club.
The property’s owner, a company headed by Andrew Smith, paid $14 million for the site in May 2022 but ran afoul of South Florida Water Management District regulators insisting it adhere to a consent order signed by a previous owner.
A broker told one of the Health Care District’s two appraisers that before they bought the property, they “developed the opinion that they were overpaying for the property. However, they were unable to nullify the contract and the sale closed.”
The seller, seeking $17 million, rejected the district’s initial offer of $15.7 million and produced a previously rejected offer of $16.5 million, district consultant Audrey Wolf, former chief of the county’s facilities department, told the board.
“The seller remained at its purchase price of $17 million, indicating that they believed in the industrial market in Palm Beach County, that the values would increase with time and diminishing availability of industrial properties, and that they were willing and in a position to wait for another offer of $17 million,” Wolf said.
At that point, the district reconsidered other properties but could find none that met its needs, she said.
Delays would mean even higher costs, Wolf warned, as construction costs are going up 5.25% a year, meaning a one-year delay would add $3 million to the price tag.
Bridge to cost $1.3 million
The land comes with $2.5 million in additional costs, most notably $1.3 million to rebuild a bridge deemed too narrow to span a canal that separates the property from its main entry point, Benoist Farms Road.
Palm Beach County is widening Benoist Farms Road to four lanes, a project already underway.
Other land development costs: $200,000 to connect to Hooper Road, which offers a backdoor link to the southbound turnpike exit at Pike Road; $250,000 for a sewage lift station; $150,000 for water and sewer transmission lines; $500,000 for grading and drainage; $100,000 to demolish structures; and $28,000 for trees.
Also, the board agreed to pay CES Consultants $4 million to manage the project. Officials budgeted an additional $14 million for yet-to-be-selected architects and other consultants.
They expect construction of the 60,000-square-foot facility to cost $66 million plus $15 million to furnish it to the standards of a psychiatric hospital and $27 million in contingency.
Rising construction costs and the potential for prices to increase because of tariffs helped determine the size of the contingency account, Wolf told the board.
“The center will operate 24/7 for both adult and pediatric patients, offering inpatient and outpatient services, including an on-site pharmacy and integrated primary care for overall wellness,” district staff said in a memo to the board. “This will alleviate the burden on existing partners while promoting sustainable wellness for individuals experiencing crisis.”
The memo suggested the current “ad-hoc approach” to mental health care is not working.
It “does not provide effective or comprehensive crisis treatment or ongoing medical services. It can overwhelm facilities and is financially inefficient,” the memo said.
This story was originally published by Stet News Palm Beach, a WLRN News partner.
