Despite economic fears and a flagging job market, construction projects in Middletown are thriving. In the vacant space where 505 Main St. stood before collapsing under a heavy load of snow last February, a new building is starting to take shape. The reconstruction of the 505 Main St. building, along with the construction of a new Community Health Center (CHC), senior center buildings, and a sports complex, are some of the major projects currently underway in Middletown.

According to Mike DiPirio, one of the co-owners of 505 Main St., construction on the new building started about a month ago on the same footprint as the old building. The new building, which will feature steel construction, stone masonry on the outside, and an elevator inside, will house the accounting firm Guilmartin, DiPirio and Sokolowski, LLC as well as commercial tenants on the first floor.

“It will definitely look similar to the old building but won’t be exactly the same,” DiPirio said.

According to CHC spokeswoman Eliza Cole, construction on a new location for the Middletown center is underway and scheduled for an early March opening. The construction of the Center was celebrated last November with a breaking ground ceremony attended by community members, patients, and students from MacDonough Middle School, and a topping-off ceremony when the last steel beam of the building’s skeletal structure was installed in May.

“At the topping-off ceremony, everybody who was invited was able to sign the beam if they wanted to [and] it will be incorporated into the design of the building,” Cole said. “It was a nice gesture to show how the CHC is so rooted in the community, and since we’ve been here since 1972, we’ve really affected many generations.”

The new CHC will be three stories, 48,000 square feet, and will be built to meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards. Cole said it will include a rooftop garden and potentially an aviary.

“The whole mission of CHC is to help build a healthy community for our patients and to teach them about healthy lifestyles, and this building and the garden will help take this mission one step further,” Cole said. “It helps us further educate them about healthy lifestyles and healthy diets.”

The reason for the new space, Cole added, is to centralize all of the Middletown CHC’s services under one roof. Currently, its administrative home is at 635 Main St., with an adjacent medical building and a dental building across the street at 634 Main St.

According to CHC President and CEO Mark Masselli, the new space will allow the CHC to provide care to many new patients.

“With [healthcare] reform now in effect, community health centers across the country will experience an increased demand for primary and preventive care,” he said. “The new facility positions us to meet this critical need in our community. We will be able to expand and build upon the world-class healthcare we offer, as well as extend our services to approximately 6,000 more uninsured and underserved area residents.”

A new Senior Center is also on Middletown’s agenda. The center will be located in the Eckersley Hall building on Durant Terrace once it is refurbished, according to Senior Center Building Committee Chairman Ron Klattenberg.

Klattenberg said that the existing Senior Center on Williams Street is outdated and cannot effectively serve Middletown’s rapidly growing senior population.

“The truth of the matter is that the youth population [of Middletown] is growing at a slower rate than the senior population,” he said. “The 65-and-over population will be growing by 28 percent in the next  three years, so we needed to do something to make more space available.”

Though the Eckersley Hall building was initially thought to be too expensive and town officials did not support it as a potential location, an evaluation of the building led to a reduction in its price from $1.3 million to $800,000.

“When I looked in the building, I saw a building that has an enormous amount of character and I really had a feeling that this old building, if modernized inside and if the space was utilized creatively, this really could present the answer that we were looking for,” Klattenberg said.

Klattenberg also anticipates that the architectural plan for the building will be finalized within the next four to five months, and that the restoration will be completed within two years. The building will also house several municipal offices, including the recreation department, which will result in thousands of dollars of savings per year.

Klattenberg said the new center will strive to attract more male senior citizens to counterbalance the larger demographic of female seniors who typically utilize centers.

Also nearing completion is a 20,000 square foot sports complex on Newfield Street. Though not a city project, the complex will primarily consist of an indoor turf field, will create up to 35 new jobs and will be in operation for the new year, according to the complex’s Planning Director Bill Warner.

Warner added that a new 20,000 square foot addition to the Heritage Medical Complex was recently approved. Warner said that the addition, which will include new MRI facilities, could be open by the spring, depending on winter weather.