19-03-2025
New psychiatric facility near CSN campus in Las Vegas priced at $420 million
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A new psychiatric facility for criminal offenders with mental disorders is planned on land directly east of the College of Southern Nevada's West Charleston campus.
The Southern Nevada Forensic Facility, expected to open in 2029, carries a combined budget of about $420 million for construction and land acquisition near the southwest corner of Charleston and Jones Boulevard. The four-story facility would house 300 offenders — almost double the number currently at Muri Stein Hospital, which is adjacent to where the new building would go up.
Lawmakers listened Tuesday in Carson City as officials from the Nevada Public Works Division detailed the budgets for two projects connected to the new building. Both will be paid for entirely from state funds.
'Obviously, this is a significant investment for the state of Nevada,' Brian Walker, deputy administrator for professional services of the state Public Works Division, said.
A $38 million project would pay for the land, as well as design and construction to replace three buildings on the site that will be demolished to make way for new facilities. A solar array along the west side of Jones Boulevard will also be removed.
A $382 million project would fund the construction of the new building, with three wings for patients and a fourth for administration. It will be the state's first 'purpose-built' psychiatric facility for offenders, Walker said. Muri Stein Hospital and Lakes Crossing in Sparks were both converted to serve as psychiatric facilities. Currently, Stein has 153 people and Lakes Crossing has 86.
A budget for furnishings and fixtures is expected to be submitted in 2027, adding an estimated $28 million to the project.
The 300 beds will be divided into four categories:
30 intake and assessment beds
60 long-term beds
30 high-risk beds
180 competency restoration beds
'This building has also been planned with the ability to add a fourth patient wing in the future,' Walker said. That new wing would bring an additional 90 beds, he said.
Democrats Assem. Shea Backus and Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager asked about capacity and whether the fourth wing would be needed immediately. Public Works officials responded that there would be a 'methodical' transition and the new building will probably meet the needs initially. It is designed to serve all of Clark County and surrounding rural counties.
Stein is currently at 99% capacity, officials told lawmakers.
'It seems like we are always in the situation of not having enough beds,' Yeager said.
Muri Stein Hospital will eventually be demolished and turned over for Campus for Hope, a project that will address homelessness. That project was approved in January by the Governor's Office of Economic Development (GOED).
Another budget presented Tuesday would pay $5.5 million for a new building at Summit View Youth Center, located on Range Road just south of the I-15/215 Beltway interchange in northeast Las Vegas.
'The intake building will include a classroom, offices, restrooms and intake room, and this will enable the facility to establish a juvenile justice youth intake and assessment unit at Summit View,' Marla McDade Williams of the Nevada Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS) said.
That facility takes in youth offenders and assigns them to one of the state's sites to serve their sentence.
'They are youth who have been committed to us for detention in one of our facilities. So, yes, every youth in the state in that situation is either going to Elko, Caliente or Las Vegas,' McDade Williams said.
Currently, there is no housing dedicated for intake, so incoming youth get mixed in with youth assigned to the Las Vegas facility.
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