3 minute read
New Mental Health Partners Location in Broomfield Opens Its Doors
By Kristen Beckman
Mental Health Partners celebrated the grand opening of its new Broomfield location in March with a virtual event featuring MHP representatives and clinicians, the teams who designed and built the building, members of Broomfield’s local government and organizations that partner with MHP.
As attendees waited for the event to officially get underway, Susan Bellas, MHP program manager, took guests on a virtual tour of the various spaces, including the reception area, offices for prescribers and care coordinators, conference rooms, and therapy spaces. The walls are adorned with art provided via a partnership with the Broomfield Council on the Arts and Humanities. Each piece of art is available for purchase, and MHP will receive a percentage of each sale as a donation.
During the virtual event, MHP’s Broomfield providers and team members introduced themselves and talked about the services they provide to the community.
“Unfortunately for reasons we all know far too well, we cannot conduct this celebration in person,” said Seth Patterson, chairman of MHP’s board of directors. “In fact, COVID underscores the urgent need for all of MHP services. A silver lining of the pandemic, if that’s even possible, is that the widespread depression and anxiety triggered by the necessary social isolation has accelerated the erosion of the stigma surrounding mental illness. Maybe someday it will be just as routine to seek medical treatment for mental illness as it is for a broken leg. We simply will not be able to properly address mental health issues if we cannot talk about them.”
Mental Health Partners is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit community mental health center with seven locations in the north metro area. The organization provides whole-person care focused on outpatient therapy and addiction recovery services along with other services that address factors that impact mental health. Those services, coordinated through MHP’s CARE team, include medication management, housing support, life skills training, peer support and wellness coaching.
Construction on the building located at 897 U.S. Highway 287 began in November 2019 and received its Certificate of Occupancy in February of this year. The 14,000 square foot building has two floors. The top floor houses the Broomfield office of Mental Health Partners, and the bottom floor is available for rent, with the potential for four businesses to operate with their own private entrances.
The building was designed by Battista Design Group and built by Waner Construction. LAMM Developments Ltd. is the developer.
“MHP asked us to maximize the available space in terms of the most functional sized practitioner offices possible within the space, storage, administrative and staff areas, code required restrooms, a comfortable waiting room, and a large conference room for meetings and group activities,” said architect Paul Battista. “We had to meet their space needs so as to better serve their staff and clientele, within a fixed budget, and then make it as beautiful and long lasting as possible within the given parameters.”
Battista said the building was an ideal “infill” project, meaning it was built on an existing underutilized parking lot and required very little in the way of public improvements or infrastructure. The building provides much-needed new office space in the area without requiring new land or any new city streets, he said.
“This project is an asset to the City and County of Broomfield and particularly an asset to Mental Health Partners,” said Mary Wheeler, the building’s developer and owner. “It provides an inviting and professional environment for mental health services to the Broomfield community.”
MHP has provided mental health services since 1962 and has had a clinic in Broomfield since 1988. The new MHP site is specially designed to support outpatient mental health care for children, teens, and families, featuring play therapy rooms, a family therapy space and an art therapy office.
MHP said it hopes to hold an in-person open house at the Broomfield location when COVID-19 restrictions allow.
