DARTMOUTH, Mass. – Acadia Healthcare and Southcoast^® Health today held a topping-off ceremony to signal the completion of steel work on the $30 million behavioral health hospital at 581 Faunce Corner Road in Dartmouth. The topping-off ceremony marks the placement of the last steel beam into the new structure, and is said to stand as a symbol of luck and good fortune for all future occupants.

“This hospital will be measured by how well we are able to build a community of care that will engage our behavioral health professionals and patients alike in a compassionate, healing atmosphere that offers the latest in safe, proven therapies,” said Bill Parsons, CEO of the new facility.

The 120-bed inpatient behavioral health hospital is being built by Acadia in partnership with Southcoast Health. The two organizations are in the process of finalizing a joint venture agreement for operation of the facility.

“It is a shared mission of Southcoast Health and our dedicated local community providers to address the behavioral health challenges that face our region. Challenges that, many times, are discovered in our ERs and correctional facilities or that surface on the streets of our communities. I dare say there is no need greater in our state and, right here, on the South Coast, than the need for quality behavioral health treatment,” said Keith A. Hovan, President & CEO of Southcoast Health.

Slated to open in the fall of 2015, the facility will consist of five core units dedicated to the spectrum of behavioral health needs from adolescent care to geriatric psychiatry, including units dedicated to adult psychiatry and adult substance abuse. The hospital, which will be the first for Acadia in New England, will be more than 77,000 square feet and located on a 21 acre site with parking for 218 cars.

In addition to this project, Southcoast Health and Acadia will continue to build upon the work already being done with local behavioral health organizations in Southeastern Massachusetts.

“Southcoast Health has worked very hard in recent years to reach out and connect our communities around this vital issue,” said Reverend David Lima, Executive Minister of the Inter-Church Council of Greater New Bedford. “I know that I speak for many when I say that I am excited to welcome a new partner who brings resources, expertise and, most importantly, commitment to not only fix a challenged system but to help create excellence that our communities need and deserve.”

Southcoast Health encompasses 33 communities in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, serving more than 700,000 patients. Across the Southcoast system, the emergency departments see an average of 36 new behavioral health visits every day. A fair number of those visits are patients returning to the emergency department because there was a lapse in care.

In the South Coast, there are currently four healthcare facilities with a total of 92 inpatient behavioral health beds. The new behavioral health hospital will more than double the area’s total capacity. These capabilities will allow patients in the region to seek treatment close to home rather than travel outside the community.