Reasons To Be Cheerful celebrates community-focused design of Strawberry Hill Behavioral Health Hospital

The article highlights how Strawberry Hill has spurred social and economic development in the heart of Kansas City’s urban core. The building is at the leading-edge of a new trend in which “facilities like Strawberry Hill exhibit a new way of thinking, one in which mental health facilities are seen not as a risk or a burden to the surrounding community, but a potential boon, bringing with them the social and economic benefits that any medical hospital would—while helping to de-stigmatize mental healthcare in the process.”

Since opening, Strawberry Hill has helped bring more jobs and people into downtown Kansas City, spurring the opening of a new grocery store and other commercial efforts. The Reasons article paints a picture of the associated positive impact: “For a long time, the neighborhood of Strawberry Hill has struggled with vacant lots, derelict buildings and street crime. The very building the new mental health facility is housed in, in fact, had been abandoned for years. Now, it’s bustling with hundreds of workers, and the neighborhood around it is slowly coming back to life. The new grocery store, opened in what was once a food desert, is a prime example.

Our Stephanie Vito is also quoted in the piece. At one point, she talks about how the building is designed to connect patients and staff with the outdoors, to connect them with the therapeutic benefits of nature. “We took advantage of the building’s central atrium, and we actually brought greenscape and nature and plans from the ground level all the way up vertically within the building. It helped ensure nature had a three-dimensional quality in the space.”