Restoration Rome restores use of regional hospital property
Plans by locally-based Global Impact for the creation of Hope Village — a collaborative treatment center — on the sprawling 132-acre tract on the former Northwest Georgia Regional Hospital property were unveiled on Wednesday morning.
Jeff Mauer, Global Impact International president and CEO, said like many communities across the country, Rome is faced with near crisis conditions that are the result of substance abuse issues, mental health issues and poverty.
“Unless we come together as a community, and it can’t be one organization, it can’t be one agency, I don’t think we’ll ever effect change, but that is why we’re here today,” he said.
Mauer said plans will focus on residential treatment, transitional recovery housing and out-patient services delivered within a “safe city within a city” complex on the former NWGA Regional property.
The sprawling Northwest Regional Hospital property in west Rome has been dormant for close to eight years. The hospital was closed in 2011 after a settlement agreement with federal healthcare regulators impacting hundreds of patients and employees.
“Many of you here today recall the days when this campus was bustling with activity, purpose and life,” Mauer said. “I believe it is the will of people in this community that this beloved campus be returned to life — to a life that honors its rich past by serving those most in need in our community and state and looks to the future with innovative programming based on the latest breakthroughs in behavioral health and trauma-informed care.”
The full-scale development plan will emerge over the course of the next 12 months and at that point, leaders of the project would help the state write a request for proposal for the disposal of the old hospital property. That proposal would be tailored to the conceptual plans tentatively hammered out with the help of a lot of different people and organizations.
The city of Rome has long exhausted options on the property after trying to market it for mixed-use redevelopment over the past eight years. The site includes 66 buildings, some in good shape, many in notso-good condition.
Some of those buildings would be razed, Mauer said, many would be re-purposed and more new buildings would be constructed as the plan evolves.
Plans for the Restoration Rome’s Comprehensive Care Unit at the old Southeast Elementary school building on 1400 Crane St. will continue. The Comprehensive Care Unit would provide services to children in the foster care system from the time they enter until they exit, Mauer said.
The plan represents what Mauer referred to as a collaborative effort between federal, state and local government, local businesses, service providers, non-profit agencies and faith-based partners brought together by Global Impact.
Services will include physical health support, spiritual counseling, vocational and on-thejob training along with vital life skills instruction.
Ernie Fletcher, the former governor of Kentucky and one of the leaders of the Recovery Kentucky program, will be a part of the team. Mauer said the Recovery Kentucky model has one of the highest success rates and lowest rates of recidivism in the nation.
Fletcher said Kentucky has 18 debt-free centers scattered across the state, with 2,400 beds providing treatment for more than 3,500 people a year.
Given the size of the Northwest Regional property, Mauer said he could see residential treatment catering to 700-plus people.
The Fletcher Group will be tasked, in part, with assisting in the development of funding resources that will make Hope Village sustainable for years into the future.
State Representative Katie Dempsey, R-Rome, called the Hope Village concept a “transformational opportunity” to restore the former state hospital property to meaningful reuse and healing to many who need services so desperately.
Former State Senator Bud Stumbaugh — and recent addition to the Global Impact International board of directors weighed in on the importance of the project as well as perseverance toward the goal.
“We can’t do this,” he said rhetorically.
He cited other instances of times when people were told they couldn’t do a thing. The Wright Brothers were told they couldn’t fly something heavier than air. Rosa Parks was told she couldn’t sit at the front of the bus and Roger Bannister was told man could not run a mile in less than four minutes.
Then Stumbaugh, after a pause for reflection, told a crowd in the chapel on the state-owned campus Friday. “If you think you can, you can!”
At build-out, Hope Village will eventually cost tens of millions of dollars. The Federation of Appalachian Housing Enterprises has been engaged to put together funding models, but they are also seeking other revenue streams as well.
If state agencies are folded into the programming, Dempsey said, it could have a positive impact on the acquisition price for the property. The state still has approximately three years worth of payments to eliminate bonds on the most recent physical improvements to the campus, improvements which were made over a decade ago.
Responding to a question from Floyd County Commission Chairman Scotty Hancock, Mauer said he would expect employment across the village to range from 350-400.
“Life and purpose will return to this campus,” Mauer said.