This story was reported and written by our media partner Williamsburg Watch.
It took 18 years, but Colonial Behavioral Health will finally break ground Sept. 10 on a new Crisis Service Center on 14 acres of surplus land at the edge of the Eastern State Hospital campus.
The timeline of the center reads like a novel with its twists and turns, originating with an idea to ask for surplus Eastern State land in 2007 and ending with a surprise press release that the project was approved in December of 2023, said David Coe, the agency’s executive director.
The center, financed through Gov. Glen Youngkin’s mental health initiative, will be the only one between Glen Allen in Henrico County and the city of Hampton, Coe said. It will be located along Galt Lane at the intersection with Ironbound.
Mental health advocates have been pushing for years for funding to divert people with mental health crises out of prisons and emergency rooms and into facilities that could care for them. Youngkin’s Right Help, Right Now program was designed to provide such alternatives, Coe said.
The $12.5 million facility is designed to provide a variety of emergency mental health services ranging from crisis intervention for people who are brought in by police to have their mental state assessed, to a walk-in center for people who voluntarily seek help for a mental or substance abuse emergency.
There will also be a longer-term crisis stabilization program to provide a stay of up to 10 days for patients with more intensive needs, Coe said.
He said construction should take about a year.
Colonial Behavioral Health is the community services board providing mental health, disability care and substance abuse counseling for residents of James City and York counties and the cities of Williamsburg and Poquoson. Nearly half its patients came from James City last year.
Half its $21.6 million budget came from the state last year, with another 25% from Medicaid insurance payments and the balance from fees and local government contributions, according to its annual report.
Coe said the project had its genesis in 2007, when he learned the old Eastern State facilities were being demolished for a smaller installation and there would be “a lot of land available.”
He started asking about the possibility of being able to get some of the surplus land to allow him to consolidate some of the agency’s facilities.
The plan began coming together in 2016, when James City County Administrator Bryan Hill and Sen. Thomas Norment worked on an amendment to the state budget to clear the way for up to 25 acres of the hospital land to be transferred to the agency. In the byzantine way of government, the land was first transferred to James City County, and then turned over to Colonial Health by the county last month.
The deed was transferred to Colonial Health June 3, Coe said.
For five years after the amendment was placed in the budget, there was not much action on the idea. Coe submitted a separate $3 million proposal to convert one of its buildings on Merrimac Trail into a crisis receiving center.
State officials set up a call in October of 2024, during which they asked if the agency would consider expanding its project to include a crisis stabilization unit, using property on the Eastern State land.
Then crickets – until a surprise press release from the governor’s office a year later announcing Colonial Behavioral Health would be building its center near Eastern State.
“We've had a lot of governors…over the years that have talked about the importance of behavioral health. But this first time I've seen real action on it,” Coe said. “One of the tenets of Right Help Right Now was that he wanted these centers spread out across the state” to provide access for all state residents.
The land included a 55-year old administration center that contained asbestos and was in such poor shape that the state and the agency jointly agreed it would be best to demolish it and start over.
