MIDDLETOWN – Plans to relocate the Middletown Community Health Center
to the O&W Railroad Station in Middletown have been scrapped. The
healthcare organization will move into the Touro College campus in the
city.
Middletown had sold the vacant, rundown O&W Station, which had been the victim of two fires, to the Community Health Center for $1. The center had plans to raise the funding to restore and move into it. While the organization has secured over $3 million in state and federal funds, it needed much more, and federal tax credits, which were sought, could not be secured.
Health Center Chief Executive Officer Theresa Butler said they “will not give up” on the O&W Station as they continue to explore alternative uses.
The health center will be leasing 40,000 square feet of the former Horton Campus of Orange Regional Medical Center, the facility that houses the Touro campus, from complex owner Tony Danza.
Butler called the move to Touro a “wonderful partnership.”
“We need to move,” Butler said. “We need to expand. We are at capacity at our present locations and we also need to bring on new programs. And it’s a great partnership because we have medical students to support us as well as well as us support them so that they have access to care as well.”
Butler expects to move all of the center’s Middletown employees to the campus as well as add an unknown number of new ones.
Health Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Joseph Lanza said given the changing face of healthcare, the shared campus will be a benefit to all involved and the community as a whole.
Mayor Joseph DeStefano praised the announcement, saying the facility is developing into a medical campus for the community.
As for the O&W Station, the mayor said if an alternative use cannot be found, it may have to be demolished.
The Middletown Family Health Center operates 10 locations in Orange and Sullivan counties.
