Steve Bryson’s vision of opening a regional treatment center for women with eating disorders is materializing.
The Kalispell City Council on Monday approved requests for annexation and a conditional-use permit for Bryson’s planned medical clinic, the North Star Institute, on U.S. Highway 93 North in Kalispell.
Bryson, a longtime licensed clinical professional counselor and the institute’s founder and CEO, has spent over five years steering the development of a comprehensive residential care and research facility focused on eating disorders.
More than 24 million people in the U.S. — 90 percent of whom are women — currently suffer from an eating disorder and it’s the most fatal mental illness in the country, according to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders.
“I think we’ll save lives,” Bryson said.
Working in private practice for 24 years, Bryson saw a lack of treatment options and resources in the region for adolescents and adults, with the closest clinics in Seattle, Orem, Utah and Fargo, N.D.
“There’s such a dire need and there’s nothing in the northwest really,” said Bryson, who was the director of professional services at Glacier View Hospital, currently Pathways, before moving into private practice in Whitefish.
He said he hoped development would begin in the spring or summer and aims to open the institute next winter.
Based on current plans, the facility would be able to provide all levels of care for roughly 20 female patients trying to regain their physical and mental health. The staff will include nurses, therapists, dieticians and psychologists.
“One purpose of this is that we will become a center in the western part of the U.S. for this type of problem,” Ken Williams, the lead architect for the North Star Institute, told the city council.
Williams said roughly $4.5 to $5 million would be invested in renovating and expanding the current site, which was once a furniture store and art gallery.
The property is within the annexation boundary set by the council almost two years ago, senior city planner Sean Conrad said. The city planning board recommended the council approve both the annexation and conditional use permit.
“It is their hope that what we would see is this turn into somewhat of a research and learning institute as well,” Williams said. “(Eating disorders are) one of those psychological maladies that we’re still coming to grips with and starting to understand.”