Drug Rehab Temporarily Closing Dumbo Men’s Facility for Interior Rehab
By Liam La Guerre September 7, 2016 2:00 pm
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Nonprofit Phoenix House Foundation is closing its Dumbo men’s residential location at 42-50 Jay Street in a couple of months and cutting staffers in the process, but the facility will rise again in spring 2017, an official told Commercial Observer.
According to a Workers Adjustment and Retraining Notification filed with the Department of Labor, the 42 Dumbo employees will be laid off on Nov. 25. Some of them, however, will be relocated, the employee assured. The patients will be transferred to other Phoenix House centers.
And Phoenix House filed plans yesterday with the New York City Department of Buildings, seeking approvals to renovate the two adjoining properties between Plymouth and Water Streets.
“Phoenix House is transforming its clinical programs and services to advance its delivery of high-quality care for those challenged by substance use disorders,” Byron Calamese, the chief experience officer at Phoenix House, said via email.
The construction focuses on renovating interior spaces in the buildings, according to city filings by architecture firm Gensler. A spokeswoman for Gensler did not respond to a request for comment.
Following its renovation, the 77,000-square-foot structures on Jay Street will be able to serve 125 men and women suffering from substance abuse on an inpatient basis, down from 240. But Phoenix House will also add outpatient services, programs for assessment and intervention and a specialized stabilization unit at the location, which it acquired in 1973.
“With the new clinical care delivery model moving forward, Phoenix House undertook an evaluation of its current facilities to meet the needs of the new clinical care design,” Calamese said.
The renovation includes upgrading exercise space and more group rooms for clinical care, “making the existing footprint work harder for our staff, patients and families,” Calamese explained.
Phoenix House has six addresses in New York City, including an admissions office in Harlem, two other rehab centers in Brooklyn—one in Prospect Heights and the other in Bedford Stuyvesant, and two in Queens—one in Long Island City and one in Springfield Gardens.
