Sen. Harding: “Fantastic news” for Winsted Health Center
September 25, 2024Winsted Health Center to be ‘repurposed’ for affordable housing, job training
Torrington Register Citizen
WINSTED — The Winsted Health Center is to be repurposed and renovated to serve as affordable housing and a workforce training center, using a grant for $1.6 million from the Department of Economic and Community Development’s Community Investment Fund.
In a statement, the center’s executive director, Kris Griffin, said the money will help create a “shovel ready” project for construction funding.
“Each forward step we make, whether through our state funding sources, federal sources, or private sources, brings us a step closer to making our transformative, innovative, one-of-a-kind project a reality,” Griffin said.
She thanked the Community Investment Fund and state Rep. Jay Case, R-Winsted, and Sen. Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield, “for their continued confidence expressed in our development, not only through ongoing financial assistance but also through their extensive support voiced so many times and in so many places. It’s truly gratifying to see the enthusiasm and encouragement of our elected and appointed officials, which in turn gives us added enthusiasm and resolve to bring this development to fruition.”
The center’s existing infrastructure will be changed into an affordable housing and workforce development hub that will provide vocational training in high demand manufacturing job skills and support for entrepreneurial endeavors, Griffin said. The project will also seek to provide underserved community members — especially veterans, transitioning active-duty personnel and reservists — with industry-relevant manufacturing and entrepreneurial skills by offering customized in-class workshops and hands-on training in manufacturing in Connecticut’s aerospace, defense, medical, and automation industries, Griffin said in her statement.
Case said, “Providing the men and women who have honorably served our country with veteran-focused affordable housing and additional workforce training space is crucial. This investment addresses housing shortages and will provide resources to get more veterans integrated within our state’s workforce. Sen. Harding and I applaud CIF’s action on the project recommendation and look forward to seeing it come to fruition – our veterans deserve it.”
The health center remains open, and its health services and tenants aren’t going anywhere, Griffin said.
A pediatrician and two internal medicine doctors have offices there, as well as a physical therapy office, Helping Hands Chore Service, the Veterans Administration Community Based Outpatient Clinic, and the Winsted Health Center Foundation offices.
“This is very early in the process for us. It’s a multi-year project that has been under way for two years, and we’ll do whatever we can to assure the needs of our partners and tenants are met, throughout that process,” Griffin said in an interview. “We want to keep them here.”
Griffin, who has been with the health center for 18 years, is intent on keeping the health center campus relevant.
“When Charlotte Hungerford Hospital joined Hartford Health Care, we wondered where it would leave us, and how we could stay relevant,” she said. “We have plans to make a really big impact with our plans. We were given some development funding from the Community Investment Fund in 2022, and we have our approvals in place, and our architectural drawings in place, so we’re very excited, to stay an important part of the community, as we always have.”
Harding called the funding “fantastic news” for the region.
“Rep. Case and I have long been champions for this funding,” Harding said in a statement. “We thank the governor and DECD for supporting this very worthy project which aims to address high housing costs as well as gaps in local employment training.”
The Winsted Health Center, located at 115 Spencer St., is the former Winsted Memorial Hospital. The original administration building was built in 1902, and the adjacent hospital building was constructed in 1957, according to its website, www.nestct.org/winsted.
