Memphis company to build health center in Garner for youth; create 250 jobs

Strategic Behavior Health, a Memphis company that cares for kids with emotional and behavioral disorders, announced this morning that it will build a new center in Garner that will eventually employ more than 250 people.

The exact location of the new facility has not been determined.

SBH, which operates a similar facility near Wilmington, is considering two sites in Garner in the Greenfield Business Park.

The company will invest $12 million in the 92-bed, 56,000-square-foot facility, which will be a self-contained campus providing various care for children ages 6 to 17.

A final site decision is expected to be made within 45 days, with construction beginning soon after. Construction is expected to take 10 to 12 months, and SBH plans to open the facility in the summer of 2012.

SBH has been in talks with the town of Garner for nearly two years.

In December, the company nearly purchased 10 acres in Greenfield Business Park. But with the park in the destruction path of the Red Route expansion of the Triangle Expressway, the company reconsidered.

The General Assembly recently passed a bill barring the Turnpike Authority from considering the Red Route after Garner officials lobbied against it.

“The Town of Garner has done a tremendous job in working with us to get our project to this point,” said Jim Shaheen, SBH's president, in a release.

“As the Red Route issue surfaced in the middle of our land search and due diligence, it was the unified effort of the community and its leaders that convinced us to stay and hope that the route would be removed so that we could move forward with this project.”

The announcement is a welcome bit of good news for Garner, which is still feeling the effects of ConAgra's decision to shutter its Slim Jim factory.

The company plans to lay off hundreds of remaining employees during the next two months as it closes the factory on Jones Sausage Road.

SBH is expected to pay average annual compensation of about $50,000, including benefits. The staff will include doctors, nurses and administrative support positions.

“They’re the type of high-end business that will be a long-term community and state asset,” said Ronnie Williams, Garner's mayor, in a release.