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A Missouri-based nonprofit will run Guilford County’s new drug-treatment center on West Wendover Avenue in High Point.

The center will be the first for Bridgeway Behavioral Health outside metro St. Louis. Guilford County will pay the group $1.5 million through June 30 and $2.7 million annually after that.

Bridgeway, formed in 1978, will have about 45 employees here. Hiring for some administrative jobs begins this month.

"We’d like to start before the year is out," said Janet Woodburn, the group’s chief executive officer. "We’re ready."

Bridgeway will take over the building about two years after the release of a consultant’s report that said the group that formerly used the space, Alcohol and Drug Services, or ADS, had too many unused beds and had strayed from its initial mission of providing a 12-step treatment program. The report followed a News & Record series in 2004 detailing Guilford County’s 20-year battle with crack.

Bridgeway was selected after a national search conducted by the Guilford Center, the county’s mental health agency. County commissioners pledged funding for the center a year ago, wanting to establish a place where addicts with no health insurance could receive treatment.

"They will be able to serve more people than they’ve ever been able to serve before," said Jim Van Hecke, the president of the Tryon-based Addiction Recovery Institute, which wrote the report.

Bridgeway treats addictions to a variety of drugs, from crack and methamphetamine to heroin and alcohol. The group asks clients to commit to at least a year of treatment, Woodburn said.

After a few weeks, "they really don’t need 24-hour medical assistance. And because those beds are so precious, we just can’t really afford to keep them there any longer than is really necessary," Woodburn said.

People stay at Bridgeway’s centers an average of 21 days, according to materials distributed by the company.

After clients leave the residential setting, they remain in treatment as outpatients. They might go back every day at first, Woodburn said, then a few times a week, and then less often as they get back on their feet.

Outpatients would receive group therapy, training and community support to help them recover, according to the Guilford Center’s description of the center.

The center will link patients who need longer-term care with those programs, such as Durham’s Triangle Residential Options for Substance Abusers, said Tana Wirtz, contracts manager for the Guilford Center.

But some substance-abuse advocates are already raising questions about Bridgeway. Darryl Kosciak, a board member on the Guilford County Substance Abuse Coalition, wondered how homeless addicts would be able to get to a location three times a week that’s "in the middle of nowhere."

Bridgeway’s community-support workers will help schedule appointments for clients, Wirtz said.

A van will be available for transportation.

"We realize the location of the facility with bus transportation is an issue, and that’s one of the things we’re going to be working on," Wirtz said.

Susan Mills, another advocate, said an outpatient program "doesn’t work with crack."

If the new center won’t do long-term inpatient programs, she said, "then we need to go back to do it again."

Contact Nate DeGraff at 373-7024 or ndegraff@news-record.com