Ivan Cosimi, for 12 years the CEO at SMA Healthcare, speaking to a crowd of several dozens at Tuesday’s groundbreaking. A rendering of the new treatment facility is behind him. (© FlaglerLive)
SMA Healthcare, the behavioral health and addiction-recovery non-profit, broke ground Tuesday on what will be Flagler County’s first residential care facility for men in treatment for addiction and mental health issues.
The 23,600-square-foot facility broke ground off Justice Lane in Bunnell, next door to the nearly 20-year-old Vince Carter Sanctuary, where SMA operates a 79-bed treatment facility for women known as Project Warm.
The new, 28-bed residential facility for long-term care will also have 20 beds for short-term patients who may have been Baker Acted or experienced overdoses. Both types of services represent a momentous advance in access to care for Flagler County, which currently is one of 34 counties with no Baker Act receiving facilities. That will change by November 2026, when the SMA facility is scheduled to open.
Ivan Cosimi, SMA’s CEO, described the groundbreaking as “a great day for SMA and we are very excited for Flagler County and the services we plan to bring online.”
The $14 million facility is financed through a $10 million legislative appropriation when Palm Coast’s Paul Renner was Speaker of the House, and $4 million that SMA is raising, on land donated by Flagler County, which also provides $173,000 in annual operating funds to SMA. Those funds are tied to service units that must be targeted at Flagler County residents and demonstrably invoiced to county government that way. SMA, Cosimi said, provided 10,346 service units in excess of its required contract for 1,206 units. (See the conractual service units outlined here.)
The facility, however, will be accepting patients from in and out of the county, in accordance with a contract with the Department of Children and Families that calls for a “no-wrong door approach,” Cosimi said (just as Flagler County patients have until now been admitted at facilities in Volusia, St. Johns or Duval).
“This represents an extraordinary investment by both the county and the state in expanding behavioral health services in Flagler County through their partnership with SMA Healthcare,” Carrie Baird, CEO of Flagler Cares, the social services coordinating agency, said. “Having crisis and residential services available close to home is critical—not only for individuals seeking care, but also for their families and support networks. When people can access appropriate treatment in their own community, it strengthens recovery, supports long-term stability, and allows individuals to heal without being separated from the people who can best support them.”
What will be called the Flagler County Central Receiving Facility off State Road 11 just past the heart of Bunnell is down the street from SMA’s “Crisis Triage and Treatment Unit” (CTTU) where individuals who are Baker Acted currently are taken for evaluation and possible transfer to psychiatric-care facilities in Volusia County or elsewhere. The new facility will make both the CTTU and transports out of county unnecessary.
From plowshares to treatment beds. (© FlaglerLive)
That’s a big deal to local law enforcement agencies, whose cops are necessarily off street patrols for hours when responsible for transporting a patient to Daytona Beach. (A Baker Act is the involuntary commitment of an individual to a psychiatric-care facility when the individual shows signs of self-harm or, in a mental crisis, harm to others.) In 2023-24, Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies carried out 466 Baker Acts. Flagler Beach and Bunnell police officers carried out 67. There were a total of 746 Baker Acts that year in Flagler, the rest carried out by health care professionals or others. Almost a third involve children.
“That’s a huge difference. It’s going to be much more convenient for us to get people treatment and sooner,” Flagler County Sheriff’s Chief Daniel Engert, who oversees the county jail, said. “Until now, the only men’s rehabilitation program in the county was being done at the jail, and so this now transforms the look of residential treatment in our county. You don’t have to be in jail to get treatment.” Local judges will also have more options for placement, and shorter waits for individuals who may find themselves sitting in jail, waiting for a bed in a treatment facility.
“We, on average, will wait two to four months for beds to open at different times, where we’re just warehousing until a bed opens,” Engert said. “So this is going to give us a lot more opportunities to get men out of incarceration and into our traditional rehabilitation side.”
Sheriff Rick Staly, who could not attend the groundbreaking–he was at a Florida Sheriff’s Association meeting in Orlando–said he’s advocated for a local facility for years. “It’s long overdue for Flagler County,” he said. The location “can only enhance our services and hopefully get people the help they need whether it’s mental health or addiction treatment, and ultimately that should reduce the calls for service for the Sheriff’s Office for those kinds of calls if the people are successfully treated and recover. We’ll probably never see the reduction in calls as fast as our county is growing.” But the facility will slow the rate of growth in calls, the sheriff said.
Justice Lane dead-ends at the county jail and passes by the future–but currently stalled–training facility for the Florida State Guard that broke ground a year ago. The SMA event followed the usual choreography of groundbreakings–a few speeches, a few bursts of applause, the ceremonial tossing of dirt in the air with golden shovels in front of massive construction equipment (the workers were told to have a long lunch).
When Leann Pennington stepped to the mic, she got the biggest round of applause in recognition of her new role as chair of the County Commission, replacing Andy Dance, who’d filled that role for two years. The commission had elected her the previous day with elegance the School Board could learn from. Pennington called it “a milestone event” and “a testament to the strength of the public-private partnership between Flagler County and SMA Healthcare.” Most of her commission colleagues were there, as was Bunnell Mayor Catherine Robinson and senior members of the Bunnell and county administrations.
“This facility represents hope, access and a stronger behavioral health safety net for our community,” Pennington said.
Cosimi, for a dozen years the CEO at SMA, was next, describing the facility’s place in a “continuum of services” that’s turning that segment of Justice Lane into a campus for behavioral health. (Bunnell City Manager Alvin Jackson sees the campus as part of “an employment center” in a sector of government and non-profit facilities.)
“So over in that direction,” Cosimi pointed toward Justice Lane, “we have outpatient services, we have women’s residential services, we have a pharmacy, we offer primary care.” The new facility has been talked about for 10 years, he said. Andrew Williams, SMA’s vice president for Flagler County Services, pulled off a little stand-up routine at the mic, roasting his boss for letting him know only an hour before that he’d have to deliver a speech before the crowd, setting himself up by citing the building’s new address: 101 Old Haw Creek Road. “Every time I say that, I want to say hee haw,” he said. He was apparently a Dukes of Hazzard fan, too.
He said the facility will create 80 jobs, spoke the “continuum of care” line, and concluded: “Today, we’re not just breaking ground on a building. We’re building a place where healing begins and hope takes root.” He did not say hee haw.
