The Western Massachusetts Correctional Alcohol Center is moving from its longtime location in Springfield to make way for construction of the MGM casino.
A spokesman for Hampden County Sheriff Mike Ashe said the end-of-the-week deadline will be met to vacate the Springfield building MGM plans to demolish. 182 inmates currently in the treatment program have been transferred to the county jail in Ludlow.They will later be moved to the former Holyoke Geriatric Authority.
Ashe announced an agreement last month to lease the former nursing home, ending months of uncertainty about the fate of the successful substance abuse treatment program.
" The Howard street ( Springfield) facility has been about community corrections, so we are able to move it here ( Holyoke) without it being fragmented," he said.
Ashe said more than 17,000 people have been treated in the program since it opened in 1985
