LONG BEACH, Wash. — The abandoned Klean center may soon get a second chance.

Willapa Behavioral Health is planning to purchase the former drug and alcohol treatment center on Pioneer Road. If the purchase works out, the agency will open a 54-bed residential treatment facility by fall 2020.

“Our commitment is no less than 15 years,” said Adam Marquis, Willapa Behavioral Health’s chief executive officer. “This is something that’s going to be a stable aspect to this community. That’s what it needs to be.”

The agency dubbed its purchase plan, “The Last Resort Project.”

“Our goal is to do a one-stop, one-shop,” Marquis said. “It’s not some draconian or really dark message. It’s the fact that we want this to be the last place they have to go.”

Willapa Behavioral Health recently applied for over $3 million in grants from the Washington State Department of Commerce for the building purchase.

However, Marquis said the agency has budgeted money for the project and has also raised about $2,500 through an online fundraiser.

The agency will learn in late December whether it will be awarded the state funds.

In the meantime, Willapa Behavioral Health is completing feasibility and finance studies to ensure the purchase is doable.

“The risk tolerance is high but we have to make sure we can mitigate it by these different checkpoints,” Marquis said.

The agency will know by February whether it will move forward with the purchase.

“We have competition in this area. This is not about trying to be bigger and better than our competition,” said Salina Mecham, a Willapa Behavioral Health therapist. “This is about us showing up for the fight against substance use and mental health issues … There’s such a need.”

Klean closed abruptly in December 2018, leaving patients and employees on their own. Long Beach’s Klean location was one of many closed along the West Coast after the chain’s owners went through financial trouble.

Since Klean closure, the facility in Long Beach has sat abandoned.

Unlike Klean, which focused solely on substance abuse treatment, the Willapa Behavioral Health facility would add services for mental health treatment, crisis stabilization and neuroscience.

“For wanting the whole spectrum of care, they’re all such important pieces but standing alone, they’re not nearly as effective as when you put them all together,” Mecham said.

All of the new center’s services would be trauma-focused.

“There’s a lot of generational trauma and substance abuse that happens in this community,” said MaryAnne Murray, a Willapa Behavioral Health nurse practitioner.

The agency also plans on offering services for family and friends of individuals struggling with substance use disorders.

The center would also include a 16-bed detox and withdrawal management wing. Residents would be separated by gender.

“Our eventual goal is to get sober housing stood up so that we can help people step down into that level of care,” Marquis said.

Willapa Behavioral Health plans to hire at least 25 more employees to staff the center 24/7. ”This organization will be one of the biggest employers in the county,” Marquis said.

Marquis expects the center will serve local residents, as well as others in Washington state and Oregon.