MEXICO — The Med-Care Ambulance Service Board of Directors held a groundbreaking ceremony Monday for a new building.

Directors, sporting hard hats and gold-colored shovels, cheered as Selectman Reggie Arsenault was the first to dig his shovel into the ground.

Project Manager Gil Thibeau said he expects the building to be completed sometime next year.

“Hopefully, we’ll be able to beat the weather and get the building done for spring,” Thibeau said.

The building, which Med-Care Director of Operations Dean Milligan said has been in the planning stages for awhile, will be built on a stretch of land next to the Oxford Federal Credit Union on Route 2. Plans for it began several years ago after the old building on Main Street was found out of compliance with code. In August, the Planning Board unanimously approved the plan for a new building.

At the ceremony, a board member said the company had outgrown the facility and it was time for a new start.

The new building is expected to be double the size of the old one, with four bays for emergency vehicles, a code-compliant living space for employees and a storage area.

Med-Care serves the towns of Andover, Byron, Canton, Carthage, Dixfield, Hanover, Mexico, Newry, Peru, Roxbury and Rumford.