The Pulse: Pulling people back from the brink

Brian O'Neill's plate was already full in 2011 when an assistant interrupted a meeting to ask whether he'd take a phone call from the wife of a high school friend. The King of Prussia-based developer was enmeshed in the financial crisis, trying to work himself out of a hole that included being ordered to repay $64 million in loans for a pair of local projects. But he didn't hesitate to take the call.

That's when he learned that "Francis" had just bottomed out. His 52-year-old friend had been on an alcohol- and drug-induced downward spiral for several years. He hadn't found work since being fired by a major corporation and had just been locked up after a one-car accident that resulted in his third DUI. O'Neill walked out of his office and drove to Mercy Suburban Hospital in Norristown, enroute to another intervention. His first had been 30 years earlier.

"That was for a guy who overdosed on heroin," O'Neill told me. "His mother was from a very affluent, Main Line family. She told the world. And so I started getting calls."

Now, one of the largest developers in America is looking to intervene on a much larger scale.

O'Neill, 56, said that in nearly 40 years he has spent $3 billion to $4 billion developing 10 million square feet of projects in 12 states, and currently has 20 million more square feet in various stages. He's turned a corner after near financial ruin from the economic downturn. But where his reputation has been earned in "brownfield restoration" of former industrial sites, his current focus is mental health, and he wants people to know it's personal.

"I want to change addiction in America," he said.

"I don't need my next meal ticket. This is something I've always wanted to do. And I decided to do it in the midst of the recession, because that really made me think about how I wanted to spend the last quarter of my life. I felt that this was a place I could really help people in a meaningful way and on a large scale."

His vehicle will be Recovery Centers of America, which he founded and seeded with $15 million in capital from friends and family, before raising $231 million more through the involvement of Deerfield Management Co. The goal is to specialize in behavioral health disorders, everything from alcohol and drug addiction to any particular psychiatric, bipolar, depression, or mental-health illness that O'Neill says are being neglected by mainstream medicine in the United States.

"If you think about every ailment that you could have in your life, except for mental health and substance abuse, you can get it all treated under one roof at the local hospital," he said. "But because there is a stigma and guilt associated with addiction or substance abuse, nothing is convenient. And so many in need don't get treated."

The venture is for-profit.

"It takes $30 million per facility to open a center the way we're doing it," he told me. "You'd spend all your time raising money in a nonprofit environment."

Thus far, some communities are more welcoming than others. O'Neill's plans to build locally in Haddonfield and Gloucester Township were met with opposition. He's found others to be more inviting.

"So in some cases, like in Willistown, the senior members of the zoning and planning board have understood substance abuse, addiction, and mental health and laid out the red carpet," he said. "In Cecil County, Maryland, the same thing. That's only 20 percent of our experience. In 80 percent of the places we go we have one step down from lynch mobs meeting us in public meetings."

Rita Reves is the planning director for Willistown. She began as a volunteer, and was elected a township supervisor before joining the planning commission. She told me O'Neill's project, which lacks final approval, seems a good fit for her township. She also voiced empathy for those it will likely serve.

"I've been around a long time and never have there been so many sad things happening regarding mental health and substance abuse. I'm not sure how many people who live in the area even know how bad it really is," she said.

Likewise, Anthony DiGiacomo, the principal planner for Cecil County, told me O'Neill's planned development of Bracebridge Hall in Earleville, met few obstacles because it was located in the rural, southwest part of the state.

"We have dealt with his team and they have approached everything in very coordinated, organized businesslike way. Every time they were supposed to dot i's and cross t's, they have," he said.

One person rooting for O'Neill's success is his old friend Francis.

"He took me from angry and nuts to 'Yes you can drop me off at rehab,' " Francis said.

The cajoling during a nearly three-hour ride in O'Neill's Hyundai Equus led to an admission at Malvern Institute, but not before Francis made a last-ditch effort to get his benefactor to stop at a hotel where he'd stashed some booze.

"Only Brian could've gotten a hotel manager to overrule a guest's privacy and almost break down my door," Francis said. "If he hadn't done it, I wouldn't be alive."

Maybe there was something else that resonated with O'Neill when Francis' wife called four years ago.

"I'll tell you, I'll tell anybody listening, [my wife] Miriam saved my life," said O'Neill in regard to his own demons. "She laid down the law when I first met her. But even then, it's not like I flipped a switch and that was the end of that. It was a struggle. So, I know, it's tough to do it. So I try to stay off of everything forever."

Michael Smerconish can be heard from 9 a.m. to noon on Sirius XM's POTUS Channel 124 and seen hosting "Smerconish" at 9 a.m. Saturdays on CNN.