Thanks to a generous gift from The Anne & Henry Zarrow Foundation, Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences will be one of two permanent residents in Tulsa’s Legacy Plaza West. The west tower is the largest in a three-building complex on Tulsa’s East 31st Street and was originally auto rental company Dollar Thrifty’s headquarters.

The Anne & Henry Zarrow Foundation purchased the property in 2015 and has been developing the space for area nonprofits, which, through similar gifts, own their spaces.

On Sept. 11, representatives from The Anne and Henry Zarrow Foundation announced OSU-CHS and Family and Children’s Services (F&CS) as the final two occupants of Legacy Plaza.

OSU-CHS received the building’s top five floors and F&CS — Oklahoma’s largest outpatient community mental health center — will take ownership of the first eight.

The Anne & Henry Zarrow Foundation will transfer ownership of the space to OSU-CHS and F&CS  once renovations are complete.

OSU-CHS president Dr. Kayse Shrum said the five floors will be dedicated to addressing mental health and substance abuse challenges in Oklahoma through clinical services, outreach and research.

“We are enormously grateful to the trustees of The Anne & Henry Zarrow Foundation for this profoundly generous gift, which will help ensure that OSU-CHS continues to be the leader in addressing the state’s shortage of mental health professionals and substance abuse crisis,” Shrum said. “Legacy Plaza West will provide a state-of-the-art environment where OSU-CHS physicians and researchers will work side-by-side to advance our understanding of brain diseases that impact the lives of Oklahomans.”

Located at Legacy Plaza West will be OSU-CHS’s department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences; the new Center for Wellness and Recovery, CIRCA (Center for Integrative Research on Childhood Adversity), and Project ECHO (Extension for Community Health Care Outcomes).

OSU-CHS will be able to optimize its collaborations with other leading mental-health focused nonprofits located at Legacy Plaza, including Family and Children’s Services and Mental Health Association Oklahoma.  

Regents Chairman Calvin Anthony said the gift represented more than just office space for OSU-CHS.

“This is a great example of how institutions of higher education are transforming and improving the lives of Oklahomans through knowledge,” he said. “Universities like OSU nurture the hopes of our society, solve our most urgent health care challenges, unlock new medical knowledge and share this new knowledge with stakeholders across the state.”

At the announcement, President Burns Hargis said OSU was humbled yet again by the generosity of The Anne and Henry Zarrow Foundation.

The organization has given to undergraduate scholarships at OSU-Tulsa and Stillwater, program funding for the Center for Veterinary Health Sciences’ Tulsa Shelter Medicine Program, the College of Human Sciences’ Center for Family Resilience and several areas at OSU Center for Health Sciences.

“We have some of the best minds in the country at OSU Center for Health Sciences teaching students and residents, doing research and taking care of patients,” Hargis said. “This gift allows our faculty a place to come together to make a difference in the lives and health of Oklahomans.”