Helen Ross McNabb Center groundbreaking Friday
From Staff Reports
The Helen Ross McNabb Center will host a groundbreaking ceremony for its newest facility located at 1704 E. Broadway Ave., Maryville, at 1:30 p.m. on Friday. The public is invited.
The new center will be built on 1.53 acres across from United Way of Blount County and the Blount Hearing and Speech Services building.
The center, which has provided mental health care and addiction services in Blount County for more than 19 years, is currently leasing space in New Midland Plaza in Alcoa.
The expansion will provide space for psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses, master level clinicians and bachelor’s degree-trained therapists to provide mental health care onsite. There will be separate children’s and adult wings.
It will also provide a home base for therapists and case managers who work in the community’s schools, homes and juvenile court.
The 7,200-square-foot facility, designed by Johnson Architecture and Creative Structures, will complete construction in late summer.
The $1.1 million project was funded through private donations and grants. The facility will be debt free due to the fundraising efforts of the center’s leadership and the Helen Ross McNabb Foundation. The foundation had two fundraising drives, one chaired by Kevin Clayton and the other led by Fran Leonard and Ted Flickinger.
Every facility currently owned and operated by the Helen Ross McNabb Center is debt-free.
The McNabb Center currently employs more than 40 professionals through its services provided in Blount County. The new facility will allow the Center to add 10 to 20 percent more jobs with the expansion of services.
Helen Ross McNabb currently serves about 1,200 clients in Blount County, including 800 at the Midland Plaza facility. The new building will have a capacity of 1,500 clients, according to Houston Smelcer, director of development.
The agency is in its 63rd year of providing mental health care services in East Tennessee. In 1948, the McNabb Center began as a child guidance clinic and has evolved through the years to become a multiservice regional agency.
The center currently operates in 17 counties, providing mental health care, addiction/recovery treatment and social services for nearly 10,000 children, adults and families.
For more information, please visit http://www.mcnabbcenter.org or call 865-637-9711.
