It took 18 years, but Colonial Behavioral Health will finally break ground September 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. Glenn 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.
For years, mental health advocates have supported 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 s…