MILLINOCKET ? The Town Council paved the way Thursday night for a more than $1 million health center complex that will bring at least 50 mostly new jobs and hundreds more residents downtown.

With its 5-1 vote, councilors approved selling a tiny parcel of land ? about 50 feet by 125 feet ? on Penobscot Avenue and Summer Street adjoining the former Body Works gym at Spruce Street and Aroostook Avenue for $6,000 to Katahdin Valley Health Center of Patten. The parcel will be added to existing land and facilities that will house the complex.

Besides bringing a series of doctor’s offices to downtown, the project will be a boon to downtown businesses while providing affordable medical care to hundreds of MaineCare residents and other people who couldn’t otherwise afford it, councilors said.

“It’s great,” Councilor David Cyr said. “You’ll be bringing people into the downtown area from Patten, Dover, Sherman.”

“It’s certainly something that this area needs,” Councilor Gail Fanjoy said. “All of downtown will benefit from the foot traffic it brings.”

Construction on the health center complex is due to begin late this summer or early this fall and be completed by next summer, Town Manager Eugene Conlogue said. Building designs are not finished but the project’s cost will likely be more than $1 million, he said.

KVHC is a nonprofit health care provider for the Katahdin region funded by federal grants. Besides its centers in Patten and Millinocket, it has an office in Island Falls.

The council met in executive session before Thursday’s meeting to discuss the sale. The recent land purchase complements KVHC’s plans, announced late last month, to renovate the Body Works building for $150,000.

That $150,000 renovation will turn the gym into a primary medical care practice and mental health-substance abuse treatment center that will complement a third KVHC-owned property at 50 Summer St. that now houses dentists offices. The new facility is scheduled to open July 1.

Fanjoy said she did not think having a substance abuse treatment center in downtown would have a negative effect on downtown businesses because drug treatment will only be a portion of the center’s total efforts ? though she might have been concerned had the treatment center been the only thing going into downtown.

“I don’t think the average citizen will be able to tell what people are going into the buildings for,” Fanjoy said.

KVHC’s expansion was funded last year when surveys showed that the area has a growing population of retirees, unemployed and disabled residents who could not afford their own health care.

In October, KVHC received a $816,667 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The grant is part of the Consolidated Health Center Program, which funds a national network of community health centers, migrant health centers, health care for the homeless centers, public housing primary care centers, and school-based health centers.