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HIGH POINT — A proposed psychiatric hospital to house criminal patients narrowly escaped the High Point City Council’s attempt to block it Monday.

Citizens debated the hospital late into the night. Some argued that the city can’t afford the stigma of such a hospital and that the land it wants to buy would be better used for restaurants or hotels. Others said the city needs jobs now and can’t pass up the potential investment.

In the end the hospital plan needed three votes on the nine-member board to avoid a rezoning that would have made the project impossible. It got four.

Guilford County Commissioner Bruce Davis, who represents High Point, spoke in favor of the hospital to loud applause from a standing-room-only crowd.

“This is my home,” Davis said. “I love it. I would never do anything to my community that would be a detriment. I plea that you would not rezone and prevent these jobs.”

Davis told council members that he has a day care business near the proposed site of the hospital and has heard no concerns about it from parents of the 100 children the day care serves. He said he has heard them say they’d like to see it come to their neighborhood because of jobs and economic development.

“Some of you, I keep your babies or your grandbabies right now,” Davis said. “I would never let anything happen to them.”

The controversy centers on a plan by GEO Care of Boca Raton, Fla., that would consolidate forensic mental health units at two state-run hospitals — Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh and the Central Regional Psychiatric Hospital in Butner — into one 90-bed unit privately run under state contract.

The project could mean 185 jobs and a $20 million investment at the 22-acre site near the U.S. 311 and Greensboro Road interchange. The land once was home to Evergreens Senior Health Care, owned by Guilford County.

Such hospitals house patients who need treatment before they stand trial or who have been ordered to receive treatment in a secure hospital as part of their sentences. The proposal includes patients who need minimum-, medium- and maximum-security supervision.

Opposition to the hospital from neighbors, business owners and City Council members initially sparked a move to rezone the site in a way that would make such a hospital impossible at the proposed site.

But GEO Care has spent weeks meeting with neighbors, community groups and City Council members. In the end the company stirred up enough support to ward off the rezoning. It was enough to convince a majority of local residents and enough council members to keep the project alive.

Mayor Becky Smothers said she would like to see GEO Care come to High Point — but not at the site it wants to buy.

“I think the Five Points neighborhood has worked so hard, and you deserve better,” Smothers told the crowd.

“I think it’s a short-term gain,” Smothers said. “I ain’t in charge of short-term. The decisions I vote on have to be in the best long-term interest of High Point and the Five Points community.”

Councilman Jim Corey said he thought the project makes the best — economic development for High Point — out of a bad situation.

“We would not be sitting in this room or sitting up here if the state of North Carolina wanted to continue to provide mental health care for the citizens of North Carolina,” Corey said. “But the sad fact is the state has looked at Dorothea Dix and Butner and determined they’re in decrepit condition and would take millions of dollars to modernize. And they don’t want to spend the money.”

Corey said he’s researched the company and is satisfied the hospital will be safe, provide a needed service and be an economic boon for High Point.

High Point resident James Whitcomb told the council that in the end, there are very real risks to such a project — but there are risks to everything.

“There are no guarantees,” he said. “It’s employment, and you can’t afford to turn it down. You have to think about the future.”

Contact Joe Killian at 373-7023 or joe.killian@news-record.com