A Shands plan to relocate a drug and alcohol rehab center to a vacant hotel overcame another hurdle Wednesday night.
The property Shands plans to use for the new center was rezoned for residential use at a meeting of the Alachua County Planning Commission.
The property holds a vacant building of a former Residence Inn at 4001 SW 13th St. near Williston Road, which will be transformed into a rehab center for people overcoming drug abuse, alcohol abuse and eating disorders.
The rehab center will also add about 20 employees.
Participants in the program will now be able to live at the facility, but living there will not be mandatory. They will be allowed to leave the grounds any time they want.
Patient care at the center will not be covered by insurance companies.
Harvey Budd, the chairman of the planning commission, said he is happy the center will be expanded.
“I think it is well-needed for the community and town,” he said.
Mary Anderson, a Gainesville resident, said the new center will help the community by giving residents easy access to abuse treatment.
The new location is not far from the Meridian Behavioral Healthcare Inc. and Shands at UF, Anderson said.
“It has all things going for it for those persons who are ready to change,” Anderson said.
Steven Lachnicht, director at the Alachua County Department of Growth Management, said he doesn’t think the new center will hurt the community in any way.
“I don’t see an external difference,” he said.
There will probably be even less traffic from the center than there was from the hotel, Lachnicht said.
Lachnicht, who lives near the new location for the center, said community members should be concerned about people who don’t get the medical care they need rather than people who will be at this facility getting help.
For Anderson, a better facility to help people suffering from drug and alcohol problems is personal, she said.
“It was tragic,” she said.
She worked as a lab technician in a hospital, drawing blood from substance abusers. Some of her patients died, she said.
She said the center will give people an opportunity to get better.
“It leaves the door open to someone who is ready to say yes to life,” Anderson said. “I bet there is not a single family in the community that hasn’t had one member of their family affected by drug abuse.”
Craig Brashier, planning project manager for Causseaux, Hewett, & Walpole, Inc., explains to the Gainesville planning committee details about the future rehab facility located at 4001 SW 13th St., which was formally a Residence Inn.
