MIDDLETOWN – Middletown Community Health Center is in talks to move and expand its health services to a vacant wing of the former Horton Hospital, now home to Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Theresa Butler, CEO of Middletown Community Health Center, said the nonprofit plans to pick up stakes on about 20,000 square feet of space at several offices where it operates now in Middletown and move to the former hospital on Prospect Avenue.
On Thursday morning, Middletown Mayor Joe DeStefano and members of MCHC and Touro gathered in the Touro College lobby to announce the plans, which call for MCHC to fill more than 40,000 square feet of vacant space in the former Michael F. Camillo, M.D. Pavilion wing.
The move comes on the heels of MCHC’s unsuccessful bid for a $7.9 million state grant to move its various offices to the former O&W Railway station on Wickham and Low avenues.
While the move will mean more space for MCHC to expand, it puts into question the fate of the O&W building. DeStefano said he’ll keep working to preserve as much as possible of the building, even if it’s just the facade facing Wickham Avenue. “But I don’t want to mislead anyone, there’s interest in the historic part of it but there is a possibility that the building will have to be demolished at some point if we’re not successful,” DeStefano said.
Dr. Jerry Cammarata, chief operating officer at Touro College, said the move will give students a better opportunity to shadow MCHC employees during their clinical rotations, then move seamlessly to classes.
Tony Danza, who owns the former hospital, said he hopes the move can happen by the end of 2016, though Butler declined to out a timeline on the project. Butler said MCHC officials are talking with the state to see if they can repurpose $2.2 million in state grants to go toward the move.
Source | March 17, 2016