UnityPoint Health-Eyerly Ball will open a new mental health clinic in Des Moines as it continues to increase access to mental health services in a centralized location, the organization’s CEO said.

The 15,000-square-foot, two-story clinic is being built on the Iowa Lutheran Hospital campus, providing access to a greater continuum of care in one location, said Cynthia Steidl Bishop, UnityPoint-Eyerly Ball CEO.

Eyerly Ball is currently housed in buildings at 945 19th St., and at 1301 Center St. It will retain the Center Street facility for administrative and business functions. It will sell the 19th Street building but there have been no conversations with prospective buyers, Steidl Bishop said.

The cost of building the new clinic is estimated at $10.4 million. Eyerly Ball has received commitments of $4.4 million in grants from Polk County and the state of Iowa. A capital campaign of $1 million has raised about $300,000, and Eyerly Ball is continuing to seek grants and community support to fund the project, she said.

The new clinic is expected to be completed by the end of 2024 with services beginning to be provided in early 2025, Steidl Bishop said.

She said the clinic will bring outpatient services under one roof, reducing confusion for clients on where they need to go. Community-based services will be located at the nearby Penn Avenue Medical Building.

“It provides better access for people,” she said. “There is such a need for more behavioral health services and access to services.”

Eyerly Ball will also be expanding children’s services and substance abuse services as part of an effort by the state to expand nine certified community behavioral health clinics in the state. Iowa has applied to the federal government to be a demonstration state to provide specific services.

“It raises the standards for what community mental providers need to provide,” Steidl Bishop said.

Eyerly Ball will also begin a medication assisted substance abuse treatment program. Steidl Bishop said access to those kinds of programs have been limited, and she described the expansion of those services as “exciting.”

The new clinic will also include a pharmacy, which Steidl Bishop said increases the likelihood that a client will fill a prescription.

The clinic will also provide a place that will be more inviting and comfortable for people who are seeking treatment, she said.

“Trauma-informed services were in mind when we designed that building,” Steidl Bishop said. “It’s seating. It’s lighting. It’s how offices are designed. It’s all for clients that have been through trauma.”

The welcoming environment will also help relieve some anxiety people may feel when they seek mental health services, she said, and make them feel “that they are important, that they get to be treated in a nice building.”

The new building will also help recruit practitioners, she said.

“It’s difficult for a community-based service that serves the most vulnerable in the community to recruit because they [practitioners] are starting their own practices,” Steidl Bishop said. “So if we can provide a beautiful space for people and a beautiful place to work that provides the highest quality services, we’re going to be able to attract more staff.”

But it’s the ability to increase services and access to them that was the catalyst behind the new clinic, she said.

“This is exciting not just for Eyerly Ball but for the whole community.”