Mayor Joseph DeStefano signed the paperwork outside the campus’ former Kleiner Center to officially buy more than 33 acres of state property on the more than 200-acre campus for a grand total of $1. Middletown Psychiatric Center (also called Middletown State Hospital and Middletown State Homeopathic Hospital) closed in 2006 after more than 130 years in operation.
Ever since, DeStefano says the city has been wrestling control of the campus from the state, piece by piece.
“The amount of money that will be generated on this property — the amount of jobs, the amount of services that will be provided to our community and the surrounding community — is just tremendous," he says.
Fei Tian College, a private college offering degrees in science and the arts, has been buying the buildings from the city and renovating them to create a branch campus in Middletown, which began operating in 2018. The college now owns a majority of the site, and plans to expand with this transfer. DeStefano says other buildings are being reserved for the city’s police and fire departments. The city is still exploring what to do with the rest, and is using a $300,000 state grant to develop a master plan with Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress.
Getting here, he says, took a decade of bureaucratic paperwork, and the assistance of state representatives like Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther and State Senator James Skoufis, both Democrats. Skoufis says he got involved about a year and a half ago, and he’s witnessed several hurdles in just that time.
“Seven agency commissioners had to sign off on this transfer," he adds. "And not some bureaucrat in all of these agencies — the commissioners themselves, seven of them.”
All the while, the site was left vulnerable to vandalism and rot. Even though it was technically the state’s land, DeStefano says it was Middletown police and firefighters who constantly responded to trespassing calls, or when a fire gutted one of the buildings in 2015. Now, he’s just happy the city has someone to call — even if that someone is themselves.
“I know there’s a bureaucracy, and the bureaucracy moves slow," says DeStefano. "We’re very appreciative of the state doing all this, but at the same time, some of these buildings were actually functioning buildings when they left. And now you can see the condition — and that’s what we wanted to highlight.”
DeStefano expects Tuckerman Hall and the Kleiner Center to be the first buildings that are sold and renovated, likely by Fei Tian College with the approval of the city council. The Kleiner Center once served as a recreational center for the hospital’s patients, with a pool, gym, bowling alley, and auditorium — but DeStefano says its interior has pretty much been gutted.
Second Ward Alderman Jerry Kleiner says the building was named for his father, Dr. Solomon Kleiner, who was the hospital’s assistant clinical director for 30 years during its heyday in the mid-20th Century. Solomon Kleiner died of a heart attack during a staff meeting in 1967, and the recreational center opened the following year.
“This building was so much about the patients," says Alderman Kleiner. "For rehabilitation, and for [patients] to be treated like people.”
Alderman Kleiner says his mother also worked at Middletown Psychiatric Center. He says there’s a lot of Middletown family history in these buildings, and he credits the hospital with carrying the city through the Great Depression. He’s hopeful that the site can once again bring people, jobs, and development to the region.
“It’s terrific, if they can do it," he notes. "But I’ve seen what Fei Tian has been able to do on some of these other buildings that people had given up for loss, and they’ve just done remarkable things.”
The former state hospital campus is also currently home to Northern Medical Center and Northern Academy, a private secondary school closely related to Fei Tian College.
