Brooklyn Gives Approval for New Luxury Addiction Center

Addiction Treatment Industry Newswire

03/14/2014 -ATIN – A key Brooklyn community board has given the green light for a couple of for-profit addiction treatment entrepreneurs to open a high-end treatment center in the industrial Red Hook district of the New York City borough. To be called Urban Recovery House, the move by the two man entrepreneurial team is one of the most interesting and daring to come out of the New York City addiction treatment marketplace, which has historically been underserved from the standpoint of high-end entrepreneurial efforts.

30-Bed Center

On top of it being unusual that the entrepreneurial duo, two men by the name of Michael Mosberg and Johan Sorensen, are attempting to open a luxury center in a gritty rather industrial neighborhood, but Mosberg brings a patina of celebrity to the venture. He is the husband of Jemima Kirke, a young actress that has gained recent fame by starring in the HBO series “Girls” which has been a breakout huge hit with youthful audiences. Urban Recovery House plans on opening the new center with 30 beds in a five story, 20K sf building, which caused some concerns from some of the members the key Community Board 6 who, according to local reports, remembered a time when their neighborhood was a drug ravaged mess. Nevertheless the board in a 24 to 9 vote overwhelmingly approved Urban Recovery House. The planned location for the new center is just blocks from one of NYC’s largest public housing projects.

OASAS Hurdle

A lawyer, Mosberg has been before the Brooklyn Community Board 6 five times since December in an effort to explain to board members the purpose of his treatment center plan and its potential benefits to the community, according to published reports. While approval by the Brooklyn board is absolutely critical from a zoning and NIMBY perspective, Urban Recovery House must now apply for a license to operate a treatment center from the state addictions industry regulator OASAS, an agency viewed by many in the addictions industry as downright obstructionist and extremely heavy handed in its approach to regulation.

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