Maple Leaf Farms Cans Big Addictions Expansion

Addiction Treatment Industry Newswire

07/20/2013 -ATIN – Vermont’s Maple Leaf Farms, at nearly 60 yrs one of the oldest continuously operating addiction treatment drug rehab alcohol rehab centers in the nation, has backed off a big multi-million dollar plan to vastly expand its residential bed count. The venerable non-profit has canned plans to buy a bankrupt school campus from a local bank and over time add nearly 100 beds, which would have more than doubled the addiction center’s capacity.

Waiting List

Behind the expansion impetus was the heartbreak of having to turn away nearly four hundred clients a year from an inability to serve them due to lack of bed space. Located in the town of Underhill, Maple Leaf wanted to lay down nearly $3M to acquire 14 buildings, including a new $1.4M gym, and hundreds of acres that was the former Pine Ridge School. But after spending about $250K, Maple Leaf decided that delays and cost over-runs had made the expansion project too expensive.

NIMBY

While some local residents had offered the usual NIMBY opposition to Maple Leaf’s purchase of the nearly 130-acre school campus, local politicians and planning authorities had invested considerable resources in helping get the residential addiction treatment expansion project going and thus were surprised when Maple Leaf chief Bill Young pulled the plug earlier this week.

POST YOUR COMMENTS BELOW… start a debate!

Got Addiction News? …TELL US!