MIDDLETOWN — Touro College officials, the developer, local politicians and others on Thursday announced progress on an osteopathic medical school project for the former Horton Hospital campus that will create hundreds of jobs and bring hundreds of doctors to the mid-Hudson region.
Renovation to the former hospital will start within the next 90 days, said Touro College President Alan Kadish, and the college’s grand opening is planned for August 2014.
They have already received a number of approvals they need from the city, including a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement; now, they’re waiting for some educational approvals, which Kadish said he expects to get in the next six months.
“Touro College, welcome to Orange County, welcome to the community,” county Executive Ed Diana said. “We open our doors to you.”
The medical school has been in the works for several years, since Orange Regional Medical Center moved forward with its plans to close Horton in Middletown and Arden Hill Hospital in Goshen and consolidate them in a new hospital in the Town of Wallkill. When fully operational, the college would enroll more than 500 students yearly, whose spending would help generate a $55 million yearly economic impact for Middletown and the surrounding communities.
“It’s a very exciting day in the City of Middletown,” Mayor Joe DeStefano said.
Part of the campus may also be dedicated to other health-science related schools; as well as the osteopathic school itself, plans include dormitory housing, medical offices and an assisted-living facility.
New York-based Touro would enter into a long-term lease with the property’s owner, the Danza Lesser Group, and invest $24 million initially to renovate the former hospital. The project also got a $1 million state grant in December. About 800 jobs are expected in the county from the medical school project.
DeStefano said the project is expected to create 150 construction jobs in Year 1; more than 400 faculty and administrative jobs in Year 2; 27 hospital administrative jobs in Year 3; and 344 residencies at local hospitals in Year 4.
Statistically, many doctors stay in the area where they train, and the school’s backers hope it will drastically increase the number of doctors in the Hudson Valley and the Catskills, areas that don’t have enough of them, and thus increase the region’s overall health. Some parts of the Catskills have some of the poorest health indicators in the state.
“This is the right project with the right school at the right location at the right time,” said Ron Israelski, director of medical education at Orange Regional Medical Center, who has been heavily involved in making the project a reality.
“The man who made it work was you,” DeStefano told him.
Tony Danza, one of the owners of Danza Lesser, said he wants to put two plaques in the school’s center court — one commemorating its history from 1924, when the Horton family developed an orphanage that soon became a hospital that served Middletown for decades, and one commemorating the people who made the medical school possible.
“Under it all is real estate, and there’s a lot of history here I don’t want to lose,” he said.