A misty day couldn’t dampen the spirits of those who gathered on Monday at the Maine Youth Center to celebrate the dedication of a new family services building.

The old barn, built in 1903, was part of a dairy farm located on the edge of Maine’s first reform school for boys. Boys at the reform school, often taken from their families for small crimes like stealing, worked the farm and also made bricks for many homes on Portland’s Western promenade.

Youth Alternatives, an organization helping at-risk youth, plans to convert the 12,600 square foot building, which is on the national register of historic places, into a place of healing, said Gloria Melnick, executive vice president of Youth Alternatives.

“They were taken away from their families, when the real crime was poverty,” said Melnick.

Ginny Gentile, Youth Alternatives chief financial officer, said the building’s history convinced the agency it was the right spot for the family services building. “Once we got the history, we couldn’t let it go, we knew we had to do it,” said Gentile.

The project cost is estimated at around $7 million, with a goal of raising $2.7 million in donations and the rest paid through loans secured by Youth Alternatives.

In the new space, the private non-profit group, which now serves about 6,100 families, could now service more than 7,600 children and families. The new space will provide room for parenting classes, mediation, substance abuse counseling, play areas and a parent’s resource library.

Melnick said this new space is vital because many of their programs must happen outside the home, on neutral turf.

Because their space has always been so limited, things like supervised visits, for children no longer living with parents, are often done in donated or public spaces, like a church building or even a McDonald’s, said Sarah Johnson, vice president of development.

“It’s terribly inadequate and it’s embarrassing for families,” said Johnson who explained that often during these supervised visits, the supervisor will offer parenting advice and guidance, which can create an uncomfortable or awkward situation for parents who perceive there might be eavesdroppers.

This new space is crucial to the work Youth Alternatives is doing, said Johnson. The new space will include a family kitchen, where families can spend quality time learning to interact by preparing and sharing meals together.

“The best social service isn’t DHHS, it’s the strength of the family,” said Gov. John Baldacci who spoke at the groundbreaking ceremony Monday morning.

This new space will give those families the physical and emotional space they need to resolve issues and stay together, he said.

Youth Alternatives estimates that the project will be completed mid-summer 2007. They will have a 90-year lease with Richard Berman on his mixed-use Brick Hill development site. Berman is subletting the land from the state. The new space will allow Youth Alternatives, which now has offices in Portland, Westbrook, Bridgton and Kennebunk, to consolidate.

Kane Loukas, Chief Operating Officer at Youth Alternatives, tours the old barn being renovated into a family center.Carnival like lights hang all along the gutted barn that was once part of the working form at the Maine Youth Center’s reform school for boys in the early 1900s. The former site of the Maine Youth center, now known as Brick Hill, has been converted into condos and offices.The old barn, once complete, will house two floors with spaces for families to play, cook and be counseled together. The barn, an imposing structure, sits on the edge of what was once the Maine Youth Center.Youth Alternatives, a non-profit agency working with at-risk youth and families broke ground Monday morning on the construction of their $7 million barn renovation project.