SYRACUSE, NY -  Hutchings Psychiatric Center announces the completion of its multi-phase inpatient building renovation project. The 10-year, $50 million capital investment created a new Children and Adolescent Inpatient building and a new Adult Inpatient Service Program.

A ribbon cutting was held at Hutchings Psychiatric Center on November 27, 2018 to celebrate the end of the extensive project.

“Providing our patients with a welcoming, bright and updated environment helps promote hope and aids in one’s journey to recovery,” says Office of Mental Health Commissioner Dr. Ann Sullivan. “The new inpatient buildings at Hutchings Psychiatric Center will also give our staff a modern, state-of-the-art environment to provide high quality care. We are thankful to everyone involved in this renovation and are excited to provide services within this new space.”

The three-phase renovation plan included “gut-rehabs” of buildings 1, 7, and 8 on the Hutchings Psychiatric Center Campus.

Phase-I included a $15 million rehab of the Treatment Unit -7 building (TU-7), which, when completed in 2010, was re-opened as the new Child and Adolescent Inpatient Program.

Phase-II, which included the $16 million rehab of the Treatment Unit-8 building (TU-8), was completed in early 2015. Phase-II completed the first half of Hutchings’ new Adult Inpatient Program.

Phase-III, which has just been completed, is a $19 million project that included a complete renovation of the Treatment Unit -1 building (TU-1) along with new additions that connect TU-1 with TU-8. This third phase creates an essentially new construction housing Adult Inpatient Services. This new space includes a consolidated Treatment Mall that will serve adult inpatients for the first time. The Treatment Mall offers a skills-teaching kitchen, computer lab, multisensory space, creative arts studio, dance movement studio and classrooms with interactive media capability. This final phase of construction also relocated the Psychiatric Center’s Safety Office to Building 1. This move provides a single point of access for all adult inpatient services with a large, welcoming visitors lobby.

“We are very excited to finally realize our new ‘state of the art’ adult inpatient services program, which is the last phase of a multi-year capital renovation initiative,” said Mark Cattalani, Executive Director of Hutchings Psychiatric Center. “This new care environment is the result of a very deliberate, very recovery-oriented planning process that placed a priority on those being cared for.”

The $50 million project created hundreds of construction jobs since its start in 2008. The resulting energy-efficient buildings improve the safety of patients and staff through expanded lines of sight and ligature resistant fixtures.

Hutchings Psychiatric Center

Hutchings Psychiatric Center is one of 24 mental health facilities operated by the New York State Office of Mental Health. Hutchings Psychiatric Center has been serving Onondaga, Cayuga, Cortland, Madison and Oswego counties since 1972. The psychiatric center is situated on a twelve-building campus in the University Hill district, the heart of the Syracuse medical community.