SYRACUSE — Syracuse Behavioral Healthcare’s (SBH) new outpatient mental health and substance-use disorders clinic is now up and running at the Learbury Centre. The clinic has been open at 401 N. Salina St. since Sept. 20, according to Jeremy Klemanski, SBH president and CEO. The nonprofit organization hosted a grand opening there two weeks later […]
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SYRACUSE — Syracuse Behavioral Healthcare’s (SBH) new outpatient mental health and substance-use disorders clinic is now up and running at the Learbury Centre.
The clinic has been open at 401 N. Salina St. since Sept. 20, according to Jeremy Klemanski, SBH president and CEO. The nonprofit organization hosted a grand opening there two weeks later on Oct. 4.
“Reactions have been very positive,” Klemanski says. “Folks love the privacy that the private offices afford. They love the extra group rooms — things can be scheduled more for the convenience of folks that are coming here as opposed to when there’s a room available.”
The clinic’s opening comes after SBH purchased the 55,000-square-foot Learbury Centre from Pietrafesa LLC in March. It paid $2.83 million to acquire the building in a deal brokered by Martin McDermott of Syracuse–based JF Real Estate, then started $1.2 million in renovations to outfit 17,000 square feet of the facility to host outpatients.
Syracuse–based Hueber-Breuer Construction Co., Inc. performed the work, and Associated Architects of Syracuse designed the renovations. Crews built medical suites, an observation room, counselor-client work space, and a children’s resource room to host children whose parents visit for treatment.
“Parents are thrilled with the child resource space,” Klemanski says. “It really gives us a quality environment for children to be safe while their parents are receiving services.”
SBH funded the purchase of the building and its clinic renovations using its own cash and financing from Alliance Bank, N.A. SBH footed 20 percent of the total $4 million in costs with its cash and relied on Alliance Bank’s financing for the rest of its funding.
The organization hired 10 new staff members to fill positions for the expanded outpatient mental-health clinic. That brings the total number of employees at the clinic to 50. SBH employs a total of more than 220 people.
SBH projects $12.82 million in revenue for 2012. That’s an increase from budgeted revenue of $12.21 million in 2011.
The outpatient clinic isn’t the only SBH operation slated to move to the Learbury Centre. The nonprofit organization will
relocate several of its offices that currently take up 10,500 square feet in the Regency Tower at 770 James St. to the Salina Street facility. The offices will fill 16,000 square feet of space that Empower Federal Credit Union expects to leave next year, according to Klemanski.
“We plan to move into that space,” he says. “Our residential counseling staff will be on the first floor, and our administrative staff will be on the second floor.”
SBH intends to continue leasing out the Learbury Centre’s third and fourth floors.
The nonprofit has some other relocations in store as well. When it moved its outpatient clinic to the Learbury Centre, those operations vacated 10,500 square feet of a 27,400-square-foot building that SBH owns at 847 James St. SBH is now remodeling that building to hold a 25-bed inpatient detoxification center. The James Street facility already holds the 40-bed Willows Inpatient Rehabilitation center and will continue to do so.
Remodeling the building will cost $228,300. Hueber-Breuer is handling that work, which should wrap up in time for the detoxification center to move in around Thanksgiving, Klemanski says. SBH plans to pay for those renovations with its own cash.
They will give SBH a central location for its inpatient services, Klemanski says.
“Having an integrated, fully co-located inpatient detox and rehab is a really rare thing,” he says. “Most communities do not have these kinds of resources, so this is really special.”
The detoxification center will move from 714 Hickory St., where it currently has 18 beds. Once it is gone from that location, SBH intends to spend $187,500 of its own cash to turn the emptied space into four supportive-living apartments. Those apartments will give the organization a block of 13 units between 714 and 720 Hickory St. and are scheduled to be complete by Jan. 1, 2013.
In addition to its operations in Syracuse, SBH also provides services in Rochester. It saw more than 5,700 people in the last year.
Contact Seltzer at rseltzer@cnybj.com
