Meeting of the Minds

Lee Mental Health, which does business as the Ruth Cooper Center, and seven Fort Myers investors have entered a public-private joint venture involving the purchase of the former Charter Glade Hospital, which has sat empty for the past three years because of a funding shortage.

The Ruth Cooper Center has been eager to buy the property and relocate from its cramped quarters on Ortiz Avenue in Fort Myers. But as a not-for-profit corporation, money has been tight. The center receives approximately 60 percent of its funding through the state Department of Children and Families, including a portion of federal dollars. The rest comes mostly from Medicaid, Medicare and the county, plus a very small amount from private sources. The purchase of the property should allow for expansion and an increase in community outreach.

"So many psychiatric hospitals have been closing," says Jan Eustis, CEO for Ruth Cooper. "Florida, which used to host approximately 75 mental-health-care facilities, now only retains 25."

The 30-year-old center currently helps more than 8,000 residents in Lee County. The organization provides short-term, intensive inpatient treatment and residential, outpatient and community-based programs for both children and adults. "We are very excited about the possibility of growth and also the opportunity to hire new staff and add to the economic advancement of Lee County," Eustis says.

The sticker price of $2.25 million for the 15-acre property, on Colonial Boulevard and Deer Farms Road, was paid in cash - not bad for a property with a tax-assessed value of more than $5 million. "We were fortunate to get it for that price," says Frank D'Alessandro of D'Alessandro & Woodyard Commercial Team at RE/MAX Realty group. The larger of the two buildings on the property, to be rented to Ruth Cooper, offers approximately 50,000 square feet. Investors are looking for tenants in health care and professional services for the smaller, 27,000-square-foot building.

D'Alessandro, one of the prime investors in the partnership, adds that the reduced cost has allowed the new owners to offer Ruth Cooper a discounted rent. "Our joint venture's effort filled the mental-health service's void and combined it with a solid, long-term real estate investment."

Other investors include dermatologist Michael Haiken and eye surgeons Jonathan Frantz and Joseph Walker, real estate investors Jack Blais and Joseph Lobosco, and local attorney Bruce Frankel. The partnership holds 67 percent ownership in the property, and Ruth Cooper the rest.

Plans to renovate the former 144-bed hospital are under way, and Eustis says that the partners hope to open the new facility in the spring of 2004. Burt Hill/Pollock King Architects is working alongside Compass Construction on project renovations. Preliminary design meetings have just begun, but so far renovations are planned just for the interior.

"To have been able to bulldoze these two sectors together to fill a needed service in the community and offer profits to investors has truly put Lee County on the map insofar as groundbreaking deals are concerned," Eustis, adding that it may lay the foundation for future successful business marriages.