Higley Mansion in Cedar Rapids could become residential rehab house for substance use treatment

CEDAR RAPIDS — The Higley Mansion, which used to operate as a senior-living facility in southeast Cedar Rapids, could soon be turned into a residential rehab house to offer voluntary treatment to those struggling with substance use issues.

Under a proposal that advanced this week, the current property at 860 17th St. SE, which has been vacant for the last couple of years, would be used as a residential inpatient and outpatient substance abuse treatment facility with 35 to 45 beds. Affiliated mental health services and office space also may be provided, but its primary purpose would be as a treatment facility operated by Covenant Family Solutions.

Mike Bails, an investment partner with developer Dahnovan Builders, said the property is under contract to buy from Higley Investments, but he can’t disclose the purchase price yet. Once the sale closes, the property would be in the hands of a different ownership group, Higley Partners.

The nine-member City Planning Commission on Thursday unanimously signed off on rezoning the property from Traditional Residential Flex District to Traditional Residential High District. It still needs conditional use approval from the Board of Adjustment.

If approved, it’s slated to open in the spring or summer of 2025.

Planned work includes landscaping, room renovations

Bails said the property needs to be cleaned and painted, landscaping work needs to be done and parking needs to be resurfaced. There’ll be some reconfiguration of the interior to add more meeting rooms and gathering spaces, involving some demolition. The interior rooms also would be gutted and redone with new paint, flooring and lighting.

“From the outside, it’s going to be Higley Mansion as everyone knows it today,” Bails said. “It’s just going to be better.”

Jacob Christenson, chief executive officer of Covenant Family Solutions, said it would be an “upscale therapeutic environment” for people to be able to work through substance use disorders and “get back to their lives and regain control.”

In addition to the residential beds, the facility also would offer either intensive outpatient or partial hospitalization program. Christenson said its focus would be 80 percent residential treatment and 20 percent lower levels of care.

Patients would not ‘walk around the neighborhood’

It would be a closed campus, meaning that patients’ primary concern is working on their treatment so there is “no time to walk around the neighborhood,” Christenson said. Because treatment is voluntary, Bails said it wouldn’t be a place for required post-incarceration treatment.

It would be staffed 24 hours a day and is estimated to create about 45 new jobs, Christenson said.

There would be protocols for patients to follow when they want to leave and reenter the facility, Christenson said. It would only serve people ages 18 and over and would be a co-ed facility with different floors serving different genders. Prospective patients also would go through a screening process including checks for criminal records.

“Working with substance abuse is something that’s just really underserved in this area, so we’re excited to be able to partner and help contribute to this,” Christenson said.

Jean Kirby, who lives nearby, told the commission her concerns about people seeking treatment wandering in the neighborhood had been allayed. Kirby said her ex-husband had gone through such treatment and found it effective.

“I know we don’t have that kind of facility close by, so I think this would be a real boon to the community and it would bring the property up and then we would all be safer and feel safer,” Kirby said.

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