Sonora Behavioral Health Hospital will add 48 new beds after the Pima County Board of Supervisors on Monday unanimously approved rezoning of about 5 acres of land adjacent to the facility. The hospital turned away 2,042 patients seeking mental health and substance abuse treatment in the first five months of the year because of a lack of beds.
The behavioral health hospital would be located at 6050 N. Corona Road in the Northwest Medical Center complex near La Cholla Boulevard and Orange Grove Road in Pima County. The existing hospital has 140 beds, according to project documents.
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Supervisor Rex Scott, who represents District 1, which includes the hospital, praised staff and project leaders for addressing community concerns about the expansion.
“I think that's a big reason why when this issue came before the City Planning and Zoning Commission, it was voted 10-0 in favor,” Scott said during the meeting.
Previously, neighbors who had large swaths of desert between the hospital and their homes wrote letters opposing the expansion.
“We purchased our home on this site to live in a quiet rural community. At the time, a small medical villa with office space was already developed on the land across the wash. The psychiatric hospital expansion in 2014 had a negative impact on the quality of life in the adjacent neighborhood. The current topography and natural vegetation on the property provide a visual and sound buffer. Additional development of the property for commercial purposes would negate all of this and reduce property values in the area,” Lori O'Toole wrote in a letter to the county.
According to documents, the hospital was built in 2000 and expanded in 2016. The expansion will avoid the area's floodplain.
“More than two-thirds of the expansion parcel will be reserved as open space, protecting washes and floodplains and providing a large natural buffer for existing residential uses to the east,” according to rezoning documents.
The facility is the state's largest provider of involuntary psychiatric care for adults, offering short-term inpatient mental health and substance abuse treatment, according to project documents.
Sonora Behavioral Health Center is the only facility in the state that cares for young children ages 5 to 11, according to project documents.
While the additional beds may not meet overall demand, Acadia Healthcare, which operates the facility, said it is the number they believe they can “safely staff and physically fit within the developable area of the expansion parcel.”
The addition will also include a nursing station, medical clinic, meeting rooms, recreation areas and other amenities.
Arizona is one of the worst-ranked states in the country when it comes to mental health care, according to Mental Health America's 2024 report. The state ranked 50th overall, which indicates the state has a high percentage of residents who need mental health care and low rates of access to that care.
The country also ranked 48th in access to health care, including “access to insurance, access to treatment, quality and cost of insurance, access to special education, and availability of mental health workers,” according to the report.
Sonora Behavioral Health Hospital is one of 36 free or low-cost mental health resources listed on the county's website, which includes sites and organizations such as Community Bridges, Banner University Medical Center Behavioral Health Clinic and Alcoholics Anonymous.
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