SEQUIM — Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe leaders anticipate starting construction soon on a $31.25 million, 16-bed psychiatric evaluation and treatment facility adjacent to The Jamestown Healing Clinic.
Tribal citizens, family members and medical providers gathered on Oct. 19 for The Jamestown Evaluation and Treatment Center’s groundbreaking ceremony.
Brent Simcosky, the tribe’s health services director, said they’ve received a permit to clear the land, and staff anticipate final approval from the city of Sequim to build in the coming weeks.
Construction on the approximate 20,000-square-foot, 16-bed treatment center will take about 15 months and open sometime in February or March 2026, he said.
“This is a 16-bed center for evaluation and treatment for mental disorder; there’s no facility in Jefferson or Clallam County that does that,” Simcosky said.
Estimates are for 20-30 patients to be transported out of the two counties for care each month, he said.
Wendy Sisk, CEO for Peninsula Behavioral Health, said that, through her career, they’ve had to “send a lot of people out of this community for what I consider basic, essential crisis healthcare.”
Previous conversations to reestablish a similar operation haven’t panned out, she said, but Jamestown’s ability to negotiate reimbursement rates has offered a “pathway to sustainability.”
“This is an opportunity for us as a community to have a resource for our loved ones, for friends, our adult children and our neighbors to get access to high-level health care in our community,” she said.
“This is really a game-changer.”
The center will be licensed under the state for evaluation and treatment and for crisis stabilization.
Simcosky said patients may be experiencing a mental health crisis and may be of harm to themselves or others, and be voluntarily or involuntarily admitted.
Average visits will be 10-14 days, he said, and patients will be discharged to family or long-term services decided upon by staff, he said.
Sisk said a local facility will help families support loved ones better as they won’t have to travel across the state.
W. Ron Allen, tribal chairman/CEO, said the center is part of the tribe’s vision “we knew we needed.”
“America has a lot of health care challenges, and we want to be proactive on the Olympic Peninsula,” he said.
Allen said the tribe is continuously thinking about its next steps, and that includes transitional housing for patients too.
“We want to get them well and not just send them back to where they got sick,” Allen said.
“We have that in our plans. It’s not easy and it’s not cheap, but it’s something we think we can make happen.”
Facility
The center, designed by Rice Fergus Miller of Bremerton, will sit south of the Healing Clinic on South Ninth Avenue with a large wildflower area separating the two.
Simcosky said the facility will be locked down and everyone must be buzzed in by security. Patients will not be able to leave until they are released and escorted out, he said.
Rooms won’t feature anything that will harm patients, he previously said.
Allen said one long-term plan includes continuing West Hammond Street from Ninth Avenue to River Road parallel to U.S. Highway 101. They’re also considering adding 22-24 tribal workforce homes with affordable rent on the east side of the property separated from the clinics with fencing, he said.
Simcosky said they’ve been advised to start recruiting for the center’s administration now.
The tribe previously spent a lot up front for training and developing policies and procedures for the Healing Clinic to help with smoother operations once it opened, he said.
Comments
A comment period was open in February for both the center’s design review and state Environmental Policy Act (SEPA)’s Determination of Nonsignificance.
Of the comments received, 13 were in favor of the facility and five were opposed with residents mostly sharing general feelings about the facility and not about its design or environmental impact.
Similar to The Jamestown Healing Clinic — a medication-assisted treatment (MAT) clinic — the Jamestown Evaluation and Treatment Center was reviewed under the city of Sequim’s design review process (A-2) where the director of Community and Economic Development issues a decision on the facility’s schematics and impact on city services.
Simcosky previously said under the A-2 process, the new proposed clinic is classified as an essential public facility, and the area’s zone allows it to operate like the Healing Clinic. That’s why it went through an administration review.
Official feedback to the city for the psychiatric clinic was significantly smaller compared to the Healing Clinic when groups formed for and against the clinic as tribal staff brought it through the city’s application process.
Through much public discourse and an application appeals process, the city’s appointed hearing examiner required conditions of the Healing Clinic in December 2020, such as forming an advisory committee to develop a monitoring and evaluation program and a contingency plan for the clinic.
The committee voted in late 2023 that the clinic has had no adverse effects on law enforcement or medical response, so it opted to move meetings from monthly to quarterly.
Sisk, who sits on the advisory board, said they haven’t had to address any security issues related to patients of the Healing Clinic.
“I expect zero incidents (for the evaluation and treatment center) as well,” she said.
“Psychiatric hospitals are safe to have in your community, especially when they’re done really well, and I have no doubt Jamestown will do it really well for generations to come.”
“We’ve proven Jamestown can run facilities safely,” Simcosky said.
For more about the Jamestown Healing Clinic, visit jamestownhealingclinic.org. A website is being developed for The Jamestown Evaluation and Treatment Center, staff said.
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Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach him by email at matthew.nash@sequimgazette.com.
