Like downtown, Camden neighborhood doesn't want methadone clinic

"City Invincible" T-shirts are a popular product made by Camden Printworks at Broadway and Webster Street.

But owner Adam Woods worries that a proposed methadone clinic nearby will damage the already rough-and-tumble neighborhood and his business.

"We're trying to debunk the myth that Camden is dangerous. We love it here, and we'd like to stay, but [the clinic] is a public safety issue," says Woods, one of many local stakeholders who urged the city zoning board to reject the proposed facility Monday.

Despite the opposition, the board voted 3-1, with an abstention, in favor of a resolution concluding that no variance is required for the site on the southwest side of Sixth Street and Atlantic Avenue in Bergen Square.

After the vote, Woods published a passionate essay on Medium.com that he headlined, "Camden got totally screwed (again) tonight."

Meanwhile, the Camden Planning Board will be the next stop/step for the clinic proposal, city spokesman Vince Basara says.

The weedy, waste-strewn lot at Sixth and Atlantic was purchased a decade ago by Camden Recovery Holdings, owner of the Urban Treatment Center at Fifth and Market Streets.

Located in a former Rite-Aid store, the clinic has long been something of a public nuisance. Camden Recovery recently sold it for $1.55 million to the Rowan University/Rutgers-Camden Board of Governors.

The site is the future home of a Rutgers School of Business building, part of an ambitious plan to create an "eds and meds" corridor of educational and health-care facilities and activities to boost downtown's economic vitality.

But what's no longer wanted in the heart of the city is hardly a good fit for Bergen Square, says Mike Landis, executive director of the Neighborhood Center, a century-old human services agency at Second Street and Kaighns Avenue. The center has mobilized opposition to the proposal.

"I feel we are creating a situation that will prohibit investment and development" here, Landis says in an email. The Neighborhood Center is "moving forward with considerable investment in our property ... this [clinic] may place that effort in jeopardy."

Edward Sheehan, an attorney for Camden Recovery, says the new methadone clinic would be attractive, secure, and a boost to the neighborhood.

He says the size, design, and amenities of the new facility will eliminate problems associated with the cramped downtown location; patients often wait outside the building or hang out in Roosevelt Park across the street while waiting for treatment.

"We understand and are sympathetic to the concerns expressed at the meeting Monday," Sheehan says. "We will be working with the stakeholders and the city to address their concerns."

Some of the issues would seem beyond the reach of operational improvements, however.

Unlike downtown, Sixth and Atlantic is poorly served by public transportation, and will bring  addicts seeking treatment into an area known for drug selling and prostitution.

"A lot of people abuse methadone, and this will mean an influx of people, all in one spot," says  Printworks employee Joe White, 39, a lifelong Camden resident who grew up in Bergen Square but now lives in Cramer Hill.

White also says the proposed clinic will encourage loitering and panhandling at the Atlantic Avenue exit of I-676. "It will give the city a bad look," he adds.

Woods, meanwhile, points out the irony that facilities the suburbs haven't wanted often have ended up in the city.

Now, a facility deemed no longer suitable in Camden's rising downtown is being pushed into one of the City Invincible's still-struggling neighborhoods -- by the city itself.