A residential treatment center for House of Hope came closer to reality Tuesday when Special Magistrate Lindsay C.T. Holt recommended approval of a site plan at a meeting of the Wildwood Planning and Zoning Board.
The Wildwood City Commission likely will take up the site plan later this month.
Last summer, Holt granted a special zoning exception to allow construction of the center on County Road 126, northwest of the intersection of County Road 462 and U.S. 301.
The property is next to the railroad tracks in an industrial area with few nearby homes.
The site plan calls for construction of a 5,408-square-foot lodge and dormitory building, a 3,171-square-foot administration building and a 2,700-square-foot warehouse building on nearly six acres.
Waivers were approved to allow metal siding on the warehouse, unpaved parking and no drive aisle areas. Four parking spaces including one handicap space are planned.
House of Hope will operate a Christian drug rehabilitation center for men with three employees and a dozen expected clients.
“We’ve been trying to find a home for five years,” vice president Gene Barton told Holt at the meeting. “We feel very good about saving lives and getting men back to their families.”
House of Hope lost its rented facility in 2019 along State Road 44 near the Spaar Building and Supply store when The Villages bought the property.
Since losing its rented facility, the program has operated out of a home on Cleveland Avenue (County Road 466A) in Wildwood.
An attempt to build a treatment center along State Road 44 west of U.S. 301 was rejected by Sumter County commissioners. In 2021, another effort to acquire property near that site ran into fierce opposition from neighbors.