From left, Joan Reiss, St. Joseph’s Addiction Treatment and Recovery Centers CEO Bob Ross and architect Andrew Chary celebrate the groundbreaking of the Robert R. Reiss Community Service Center on Oct. 5. (Provided photo — St. Joseph’s Addiction Treatment and Recovery Centers)

SARANAC LAKE — On Oct. 5, St. Joseph’s Addiction Treatment and Recovery Centers’ staff met with members of the Reiss family for the groundbreaking of the Robert R. Reiss Community Service Center.

Renovations of the 8,000-square-foot facility are now underway, and St. Joseph’s anticipates opening the center to the public in the summer of 2021.

The new center is named in memory of Robert R. Reiss, who served on St. Joseph’s board from 2007 to 2018. In attendance for the groundbreaking were Reiss’s wife Joan, their daughter Kathryn and granddaughter Chelsea Abrams.

The facility on John Munn Road in the village of Saranac Lake will become the latest addition to St. Joseph’s continuum of care for addiction treatment. There are three components to the center:

¯ A 10-bed, medically supervised detoxification unit, which will serve people in need of detoxification but whose medical needs do not require hospitalization

¯ The permanent location and expansion of St. Joseph’s Saranac Lake Outpatient Clinic

¯ The permanent location for the Open Access Center, which offers a safe and stigma-free environment for assessments and referrals for people who are or may be suffering from the disease of addiction. The OAC is currently located on the campus of Adirondack Medical Center in Saranac Lake. This change in location will allow the OAC to expand its hours to include 24/7, in-person coverage.

In a press release, St. Joseph’s CEO Bob Ross said the Robert R. Reiss Community Service Center is an improvement in care because it will save people many hours of travel to receive these services, and also in terms of efficiency: Co-locating these three services will save money through shared staffing and less total space.

Village Mayor Clyde Rabideau added, “In addition to offering enhanced addiction treatment, the Robert R. Reiss Community Service Center will provide 12 full-time jobs and renovate a currently unoccupied building to an attractive professional space.”