Caro Center Replacement Psychiatric Hospital -Design

Caro Center is currently a Regional State Hospital under the jurisdiction of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) for adults with mental illness. The existing cottage-style complex is located three miles from Caro, Michigan, in a rural setting of approximately 650 acres. Caro Center provides psychiatric services for up to 150 patients on a 24 hours/day and 365 days/year basis, for all of northern-lower Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. In 2019, the State of Michigan revised their vision and goal for the new hospital to be a single facility with a capacity of 100 beds, supporting an efficient, comprehensive, safe, and flexible environment for patients and staff, designed specifically to encourage and enhance the rehabilitation of adults with mental illness.

Opened in 1914 to care for epileptic patients, the facilities at Caro Center are not designed to support rehabilitation of patients with mental illness. Nonetheless, the facility has housed psychiatric patients over the past four decades.

The campus contributes to inefficiency of patient care and complicates security measures. Vehicles are required to transport patients from one building to another. Programmatic spaces are duplicated throughout the complex. The buildings are past their useful life and do not provide proper space or amenities for psychiatric rehabilitation in line with current regulations. DHHS acknowledges a wait list currently exists of patients to enter the Caro Center and forecasts an increase in demand over the next decade.

In 2019 the State of Michigan re-imagined their vision and goal for the new hospital to be a single facility with capacity for 100 beds. The 200-bed solution was not constructed.