A Providence-based company is proposing a drug treatment center in Manchester’s Center Plaza.
Recovery Connection Centers of America Inc. has applied for a Certificate of Need from the state Office of Health Strategy to open the facility at 654 Center St., a strip mall with a liquor store, tobacco shop, barber and Chinese restaurant.
The company says its goal is to help clients avoid drugs, improve their mental and physical health, and help them reintegrate as productive members of their communities.
The outpatient center would provide medication-assisted treatment and counseling.
Renovations to the building began in January. According to the application, the company plans to spend $150,000 on equipment and $100,000 on construction.
The Manchester facility – the company’s first in the state – would employ two clinicians, a licensed counselor and an office manager, the application says.
The company says the facility is needed to address an increase in overdose deaths.
More than 1,500 people in Connecticut died of drug overdoses in 2021, according to information cited in the application.
The increase was attributed largely to the pandemic and rise in use of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.
The application also cites dangers posed by emerging substances, including lethal combinations of xylazine, an animal tranquilizer, and flualprazolam, a designer benzodiazepine, and eutylone, a synthetic stimulant.
Recovery Connection Centers of America Inc. submitted the application in October 2022, and it is being reviewed by OHS.
