Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare is planning for a new facility that combines treatment, resources and housing.
Ground is scheduled to be broken this summer on 1.5 acres in Northeast Portland. A two-story,
29,000-square-foot center will provide integrated primary care, behavioral health and wellness services. Next door, a four-story apartment building will hold 52 units – including about 10 for individuals with mental illness and 10 others for veterans; The remaining ones will be available to low-income residents.
Cascadia’s CEO, Derald Walker, said the Garlington Health and Wellness Center and Cascadia Affordable Housing will provide “a new model of integrated care for those most in need.” That ties in with Cascadia’s mission “to provide healing, homes and hope for people living with mental health and addiction challenges.”
Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare manages about 600 Portland-area apartments for the mentally ill, but Garlington Center will be the first to provide on-site services to the mentally ill as well as low-income housing for the general population.
“This is the first clinic to combine both services in this specific model that I know of,” Walker said in a statement.
Cascadia’s other developments are solely for people with mental illness and this is the first development that also includes affordable housing, which Walker said is needed in the area.
The $21 million project is receiving $500,000 from FamilyCare Health, $250,000 from an anonymous donor, $250,000 from Meyer Memorial Trust, $100,000 from the Mitzvah Fund of the Oregon Community Foundation as well many smaller contributions.
The foundation has raised about $1.7 million of its own. Officials expect to secure in six months approximately $1.8 million more so that construction can finish by fall 2017, Walker said.
Architectural plans for the Garlington Center, at 3034 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., were released last week by Scott | Edwards Architecture. Principal Lisa McClellan described the project.
“The site is like a series of several rooms with a courtyard between the housing and clinic, which was a community garden site,” McClellan said. “We will recreate the community garden and also have outdoor plaza areas as an extension of the wellness center.”
The two-story wellness center will have a through lobby from the parking lot to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, she said.
“The wellness center will be primarily on the ground floor with the integrated behavioral health center on the second floor,” she said.
The new center will offer medical and counseling teams and preventative care and healthy lifestyle classes as well as a kitchen, food pantry and exercise room.
The apartments not filled by mentally ill residents or veterans will be open to the “general affordable population,” McClellan said.
The fourth floor of the four-story apartment building will be a common room for residents, she said. Support offices will occupy the ground floor.
“There is also potentially a small retail component on the northwest corner between Morrison and Monroe (streets),” she said.
The apartments will be comprised of six studios, six two-bedroom units and 40 one-bedroom units, McClellan said.
“There is also a strong desire to incorporate public art … visible from the southwest corner of Martin Luther King” Jr. Boulevard, she said.
McClellan said she is excited to work on the all-new project.
“They’ve been there about 14 years and they want to expand their services and provide wellness as well,” she said. “It’s designed to front on a prominent corner of MLK, the public face of the Garlington Center complex. I’m excited to have been able to create an integrated campus with a courtyard in between.”
Garlington Health and Wellness Center and Cascadia Affordable Housing
Location: 3034 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Cost: $21 million
Anticipated construction start: fall 2016
Anticipated construction finish: fall 2017
Owner and developer: Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare
Architect: Scott | Edwards Architecture
Engineers: ABHT Structural Engineers, Capital Engineering, Interface Engineering
Landscape architect: 2.ink Studio
General contractor: Colas Construction