University of Michigan Health–Sparrow has begun work on what will become the Janice M. Granger Behavioral Health Building, Lansing’s first psychiatric facility with inpatient beds for children and teens.
The health system held a groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday for the $83 million project, which leaders say will fill a long‑standing gap in mid‑Michigan’s behavioral health services.
Michael Nanzer, UM Health–Sparrow’s director of behavioral health, said the new space is designed to challenge assumptions about what psychiatric care looks like.
“It’s a different approach than any other psychiatric facility,” Nanzer said. “Most people have a mentality of what a psych facility looks like — bars, closed windows, all this stuff. This doesn’t look anything at all like that.”
Nanzer also said the building’s design is meant to support treatment as much as the clinical care itself.
“There’ll be a lot of daylight, a lot of open spaces, a lot of environment as part of the treatment, which nobody else in the state is really doing right now,” he said.
He added that the need for pediatric behavioral health beds in the region is urgent.
“If you have a child who needs this type of care right now, you’re driving at least an hour,” Nanzer said. “There’s just literally nothing in the community that can serve that need. So this will make a huge difference.”
The building is named for the late Janice M. Granger. Her family pledged the largest gift in UM Health–Sparrow’s history to support the project.
Nanzer said gifts from donors such as the Granger family are what make expanded behavioral health services possible in mid-Michigan.
“Behavioral health is not a big money maker for health systems," he said. "That’s why a lot of people are not doing it."
Janice’s husband Alton L. Granger attended Wednesday’s groundbreaking and said the project addresses a need his own family has experienced.
“Lansing needs beds for people with behavioral health issues,” he said. “Part of our family was sent to Detroit, one to Grand Rapids. Hopefully this will take care of the people in Lansing, for Lansing.”
Granger said the facility reflects his family’s commitment to expanding behavioral health care close to home.
“It’s a chance for our family, and especially me, to honor my wife, who was a very special person,” Granger said. “She was smart. She was kind of the nerve center of our family.”
The Janice M. Granger Behavioral Health Building will be located behind Lansing’s UM Health-Sparrow hospital, the site of what used to be Eastern High School.
Community members has argued against tearing down the historic building and petitioned the city to save it. UM Health-Sparrow argued the building was too far gone to be remediated. It was demolished in the spring of 2025.
UM Health-Sparrow spokesperson Jeremiah Wilcox sent WKAR a statement to address the controversy:
“We understand the deep attachment the community holds for the old Lansing Eastern High School and respect the memories tied to that building. This new 64-bed behavioral health facility will provide critical mental health services for adults, seniors and, for the first time in the region, children and adolescents.”
Construction on the new hospital is expected to be completed in 2028.