Tanager Place, Kirkwood reach purchase agreement

Cedar Rapids pediatric mental health services provider, Tanager Place, plans to purchase the Kirkwood Community College Resource Center to expand its outpatient services.

The deal is tentative at this point.

The sides have reached a purchase agreement for $4 million, and the closing date is June 30, Jim Choate, Kirkwood's chief financial officer, announced to the board of trustees at a meeting of Thursday.

'We have a crisis in this country in terms of access for mental health issues,” said George Estle, chief executive of Tanager Place. 'It's a huge problem, and it's not a surprise that the demand is increasing. Our challenge is how do we try to begin to meet that demand. One of the first things we have to do is space, the where and how.”

The entire outpatient clinic, which includes child psychiatry, play therapists, family therapists and behavioral therapists for children with autism, among other services, would relocate to the resource center space, if the deal goes through, Estle said.

And, the location will be more accessible to the general population, he said.

Tanager would still operate its main campus on C Street and Camp Tanager on Old Mount Vernon Road, he said.

The Kirkwood Resource Center, a 60,000 square-foot four-story building at 1030 Fifth Ave SE, became expendable when Kirkwood opened its Linn County Regional Center. Services from the resource center will be moved to the main Kirkwood campus and the regional center, Choate said.

Marcia Rogers, a Kirkwood trustee, said she was pleased for the neighborhood that Tanager Place is primed to take over the space.

'I think it is fantastic it is going to Tanager Place,” Rogers said.

Tanager primarily serves Linn and surrounding counties, but gets patients from throughout the state and beyond, Estle said. The clinic gets 100 to 150 referrals per month, and as they've increased staff it's been met by increased demand, he said.

At the new space, the plan is to eventually double the staff size to 40, Estle said.

'Again, it's because of demand,” he said. 'We've filled every nook and cranny of our current space and we have no more room.”

If the deal goes through, the space would need to be renovated and it would be several more months after closing before it would be opened to the public, he said.

Tanager would use one entire floor of the building and some space on other floors, Estle said. The building also houses additional tenants, such as doctor's offices, and those tenants would be welcome to stay, he said.