MIDLAND, Texas — According to the President of the Permian Basin Behavioral Health Center Russell Meyers, construction just started for the Center, which is expected to open in November 2025.
The Center is set to provide mental heath care to millions of West Texans.
"We’ve been waiting for so long to get something visible going it’s been great so seeing big yellow piece of equipment out there and dirt being smoothed was really a moment for us a great milestone no question," Meyers said. "You’ll see bulldozers out there pushing dirt around and trying to prepare the dirt. Soon they’ll be working on foundation there’ll be some structural steel put up and that’s all that’s in this first phase of construction. We have a new set of construction documents that comes out mid December which covers everything else, all the detail of building the facility we'll bid that and that part of construction will be early next year."
Meyers said the facility is expected to open at the end of 2025, but the Center's Board of Directors is already thinking about the operations that'll be happening inside the 200-bed facility.
"We’re really now beginning to think more about operations than anything else. The design is pretty much done it’s kind of on its own track," Meyers said. "Thinking about who’s going to run the departments and what information system decision making do we need to have so we can get the computers lined up before we open."
As the ball gets rolling on the Center, fundraising efforts still continue as well.
"We raised a little over $210 million total including state funding we have project budget is about $225 million so we have another $15 million or so to raise and we’re still actively pursuing that," Meyers said. "That will be a lot of our work in 2024 is going to be getting into the details of how the operation works how it’ll be funded how many people does it take."
With this Behavioral Health Center bringing access to mental health care in the Permian Basin, Meyers said the support has been tremendous.
"I think the best part of this is the amount of support whether it’s financial or encouragement but the community has really rallied around this people have come to recognize how important behavioral health concerns really are," Meyers said.
Midland-Odessa health professionals broke ground on the upcoming center in April 2023.
To read more behind the project, click here.