Dozens of people gathered early Friday afternoon to celebrate the grand opening of Salem’s first center that gives people a quiet place to sober up and easier access into long-term treatment.

Bridgeway Community Health officially opened its new sobering center downtown Friday, June 5, celebrating a multi-year effort with a ribbon cutting ceremony. The new building also includes an expanded place for detox treatment and a medical clinic.

“I’m so thankful that we get to provide this service for the community, and this is really the first step for individuals in the journey of health and healing. So, I’m glad that we get to serve,” Carlos Texidor Maldonado, Bridgeway’s CEO, said in an interview.

Construction on the expansion, which is attached to the existing Bridgeway Plaza at 750 Front St. N.E., started in April 2024 and cost around $15 million, Bridgeway spokeswoman Alyssa Laidler previously told Salem Reporter.

Read a more in-depth look at the new sobering center and expanded detox treatment program here.

Bridgeway to open Salem’s first sobering center, giving people a first step into treatment

Ahead of the ribbon cutting, Bridgeway founder and former CEO Tim Murphy told the crowd of dozens that this expansion took years of effort to bring services to where people could access them downtown. 

The city of Salem had, for years, listed building a sobering center as a key priority to give people an alternative place to sober up outside of jail and the hospital, before city officials concluded in 2023 that Salem lacked the funds to operate one. Bridgeway secured millions in state funding to complete the project.

“Today, it’s a dream fulfilled,” Murphy said.

The building’s first floor is home to Salem’s first sobering center, which has space for six people on recliner beds in a shared space, plus two private rooms. It’s a place where law enforcement officers and emergency responders deliver people who are under the influence of alcohol or other drugs and need to ride out their intoxication under the supervision of staff. 

Sobering usually takes a matter of hours. There is not a set date for when the center will open for sobering, but hope it is “soon as possible,” Doug Cox, Bridgeway’s director of medical services, said.

There is also a pharmacy and primary care clinic on the first floor. 

On the second floor is the organization’s recently expanded detox treatment program. The program has been operating out of its existing location, on Northeast Harold Drive, with 24 beds. The new space has 34.

The detox program takes slightly longer than sobering, where people often stay between four and seven days under medical observation as they get treatment for withdrawal from alcohol, fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamine and prescribed opiates.

The new detox space is planned to start welcoming clients June 22, according to Cox.

“I hope that our community partners will realize that this is a service, that if they will partner with us, it’ll be available for everyone,” he said. “If there’s someone who’s publicly intoxicated and they’re in somebody’s doorway, for example, where are they going to take them? I mean … can’t just give them a citation and leave them in the doorway, (they) need to be able to take them someplace, and so I think that’s really going to be key for Salem and Keizer both, is they’ll have a safe place to bring somebody … that’s willing to come.”

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