The 121-bed Cordilleras Mental Health Center is slated to open in 2024, according to the County.

Construction on the $155 million project off Edgewood Road, about a half mile east of Interstate 280, began in April 2021. The new center will comprise of a cluster of small residential buildings with shared community spaces that aim to provide a “home-like setting with windows and doors opening to nature,” the County said. The center will replace a “drab concrete facility that opened during the Truman Administration as a tuberculosis ward and transitioned to a mental health treatment center more than four decades ago,” officials said.

The project consists of four single-story mental health recovery centers, each accomodating 16 individuals; a separate housing unit for 57 individuals with a lengthy history of mental illness; a campus core with a multipurpose room, arts and crafts center, chapel, conference rooms and other support spaces; a variety of outdoor areas, including secure courtyards, for communal gathering, sheltered seating, gardens, sports courts and more; and tearing down the existing facility, a step that will improve views from the center. It’s considered a “zer net energy” project, which means the total amount of energy used by the building on an annual basis will be equal to the amount of renewable energy created on the site.

The cost of the new building is being paid primarily through the sale of bonds, the County said.

To learn more, go here or here.

Photo from construction site courtesy of the County

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