• Westminster residents feel duped by rehab center applicant

• 
  

  By Paula J. Owen
  Telegram & Gazette Staff
  

  
  Posted Jun. 9, 2016 at 9:09 PM
  Updated at 10:50 PM
  
  
  

  WESTMINSTER – In the midst of a nationwide opioid epidemic, one of the largest addiction treatment and behavioral health care providers in the Northeast is completing an estimated $5 million conversion of the former Village Inn into a residential addiction rehabilitation center that will open next month.

  However, some abutters to the property say they feel duped by the man who initially presented plans for the facility to the community at multiple hearings, but later did not follow through with the purchase after receiving a special permit from the town. A special permit issued by the Zoning Board of Appeals is filed at the Registry of Deeds and stays with the property, not the owner. After ZBA approval, Recovery Centers of America assumed Healing Hills Village Addiction and Recovery LLC’s position in the purchase and sale agreement with the Crowley family, and they closed on the sale last month.

  Healing Hills co-founder Jack Maroney of Holden said he collaborated with RCA because estimates for renovating the facility were too high for his company to complete.

  Mr. Maroney said renovating the property is taking more time, energy and resources than he anticipated. He said renovations were “not his specialty” and he had no idea how much it would cost when he started the venture. The community, Mr. Maroney said, will benefit from RCA’s resources with increased security and safety upgrades at the facility. Additionally, RCA will double the number of staff hired to 90 to 100 employees, he said.
  

  “I could have done it, but I would have struggled,” Mr. Maroney said.

  The original purchase-and-sale agreement between Healing Hills and the Crowley family was for 10 acres of a 100-acre parcel that includes the inn, restaurant and several smaller buildings in a district zoned for commercial use.

  According to Bradley F. Greenstein, chief executive officer of an RCA substance abuse facility in a former hospital in Danvers that the company is renovating concurrently for $24 million, RCA closed on the Village Inn property last month for $2.5 million and also purchased an additional 9.2 acres from the Crowleys adjacent to the site for $600,000 for future expansion of clinical and program space for a total of about 20 acres. On its website, RCA says the center will have 90 beds. Mr. Greenstein said the company also plans to provide outpatient services at the site in the future.

  Additionally, RCA completed a separate asset purchase agreement with Healing Hills that included Mr. Maroney’s three-year employment agreement with RCA, Mr. Greenstein said.

  Mr. Maroney, who has been involved in addiction services for 26 years and is also in long-term recovery, will be CEO of Recovery Centers of America at Westminster, Mr. Greenstein said. Mr. Maroney worked for many years at AdCare Hospital in Worcester and founded Spring Hill rehabilitation and recovery in Ashby, which opened in 2012. Mr. Maroney left Spring Hill in 2014, in a mutually agreed-upon departure.

  The ZBA approved a special permit with conditions for the center at the former Village Inn in March after Mr. Maroney presented plans for the facility at ZBA hearings for a 48-bed facility. A condition of approval was that the center would not provide outpatient services. The 6,000-square-foot detox center will be behind the main building, where the parking lot is now. There will be 24-hour nursing at the 16-bed facility. The residential portion of the rehabilitation program would be housed in the main building, with the capacity to treat 32 people.

  Mr. Maroney assured people at public hearings that there would be no ongoing methadone treatment programs, just short-term methadone use in the detox facility. Further, he said, no court-ordered clients nor patients would be discharged onto the street. All patients would be escorted when off the property.

  Residents' concerns included security cameras, fencing, fire hazards (outdoor smoking areas), number of staff supervising residents, property values, break-ins, benefits to the town, and the conditions the ZBA could put on the special permit.

  Elizabeth L. and John A. Bowen’s property on Narrows Road abuts the undeveloped 80 acres still owned by the Crowleys behind the addiction center. Ms. Bowen, a financial adviser and entrepreneur, said she is disappointed with Mr. Maroney and the Crowleys for their alleged discreetness over the sale to RCA. She said she feels Mr. Maroney was used as a front man to appease the community in obtaining ZBA approval.

  “I blame the Crowleys as much as I do Jack Maroney with not being open with what they are going to do,” she said in the sitting room of her home overlooking Wyman Pond, where the Bowens have lived for more than four decades. “How could the Crowleys not know the financial situation of who they were selling it to?”

  Ms. Bowen said in her experience as a financial adviser, when someone is selling a property worth millions, they check out everything about prospective buyers.

  “I have no confidence in Mr. Maroney. He was less than truthful,” she said. “Everything he told us at the hearings doesn’t apply about public safety because it was based on (former Spring Hill in) Ashby and a local guy. It’s distressing.”

  Mr. Bowen, a lawyer who served on the Zoning Board for years and is now an alternate, said he is concerned about safety at the facility.

  “The fact they changed something so basic and it is now owned by ‘Rehabs R Us’ – their intention to make (admission) completely voluntary and not mandated may not hold up. They presented a certain atmosphere and mood and then go and sell it to a for-profit from Pennsylvania so quickly after ZBA approval. They were very believable and sincere. It is almost as if a national company put up a front man.”

  However, David I. Crowley said he and Mr. Maroney did not know how much it would cost to bring the property up to state code. He said Mr. Maroney planned to spend $1 million on renovations and keep the rustic nature of the old inn. RCA is going to fully gut the buildings, Mr. Crowley said, and rebuild to conform to the company’s standards and adding features not included in Mr. Maroney’s plan, such as upgrades to keep the outdoor pool open year-round.

  Additionally, he said, Mr. Maroney always planned to sell the property.

  “Jack is getting older and he wasn’t sure what he really wanted to do,” Mr. Crowley said. “Before the close, he was always talking to other people interested in buying a permitted facility. His plan was always to operate at least for a couple of years until he was able to turn it over to one of the bigger companies like RCA.”

  He said Mr. Maroney was going to finance most of the renovations to get it up and running. Mr. Maroney also required some owner financing on the purchase, Mr. Crowley said.

  “With RCA, we didn’t have to exercise any owner financing,” he said.

  Mr. Bowen said he is not concerned that the facility will offer outpatient services because it is explicitly prohibited in the ZBA’s decision and would require approval by the town.

  However, according to Massachusetts Department of Public Health spokesman Scott Zoback, no local approval is needed for outpatient services. He said the DPH is not aware of plans for a methadone clinic in Westminster.

  “That would be highly regulated,” Mr. Zoback said. “From what we know, current plans are for detox, CSS, outpatient, and residential services.”

  According to information provided by RCA, the company is aiming to become the national model for drug and alcohol treatment. The renovation at the facility in Danvers, slated for completion in July, will convert 140,000 square feet into a state-of-the-art “luxuriously appointed” 210-bed inpatient facility with a grand entry into a lobby of marble floors. It will house a five-star dining room and have an outdoor patio and fireplace. The facility will employ 270 to 300 full-time professionals, RCA says.

  It will be one of the largest addiction centers in the world, opening at a time when substance abuse is one of the fastest-growing epidemics in the United States.

  RCA raised $231.5 million through a commitment from Deerfield Management Co., a New York-based health care investment firm, the company said, and plans to create one of the world’s largest addiction treatment and behavioral health care companies.

  Danvers will serve as a national prototype and will offer patients “five-star, hotel-like, residential living accommodations in a dramatic, contemporary environment designed to eradicate the stigma of addiction, its treatment and recovery,” RCA says.

  Including Danvers, RCA has acquired eight development sites in the Northeast, with a projection to operate over 1,200 beds by the end of 2017.