Flint, MI—Genesee Health System (GHS) will be moving its main campus in Flint to the former Baker College undergraduate building and library in Flint Township, Mich.
The county’s public provider of mental health services announced that Greater Flint Mental Health Facilities, which owns all GHS buildings, has purchased the two Baker College buildings on 1050 W. Bristol Rd. from Communities First, Inc.
The purchase amounted to $7.8 million, and according to Danis Russell, CEO of GHS, the health services provider plans to move its current main campus on 420 W. Fifth Ave. to its new site by the end of 2023.
As part of the deal, Communities First will take possession of health provider’s current main campus building once GHS has moved out.
“We’ve been looking for new space for quite a while just because our building is very old, needs major, major investments in infrastructure and it was never designed for its current purpose,” Russell said in an interview, adding that “we basically have hospital rooms that were converted into offices, so every office has a private bathroom with private plumbing and a individual heating and cooling unit. So it’s very, very inefficient.”
Glenn Wilson, president and CEO of Communities First, said his organization worked with GHS to ensure the health provider has a suitable location on the former Baker College campus, saving them the cost of constructing a new facility from the ground up.
In an email, Wilson said Communities First is now evaluating the current GHS main campus “for the best community use,” and that GHS will continue to occupy the Fifth Avenue building until they complete renovations at the new facility.
As for GHS’ new site in Flint Township, Russell said the main building is 180,000 square feet, with the former library being 18,000 square feet.
The GHS services that will move to the new site include its case management, administration, medication clinic and customer services. GHS plans to be fully operational at the new site by early 2024.
Russell added in a follow-up email, “The new GHS Main Campus will greatly expand health and wellness activities for the community and staff. We will now have the capacity to work with more community partners and expand our training space while strengthening mental health and physical health services.”
GHS will host public discussions at locations around the new campus to answer the community’s questions about it. According to a GHS press release on June 1, 2023, these talks are planned for the summer and early fall.