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After a major fire on Aug. 24, 2006 destroyed more than half of the Highland Park Conservative Temple-Congregation Anshe Emeth, the temple began the long road to recovery.

The renovations are moving apace, and officials are hoping to have the building completed by fall of next year.

After breaking ground on May 4, the temple is on the way to having its new sanctuary and social hall ready by May 2009, and the rest of the shul completely finished as of the fall of 2009.

"I'm very excited, it's a great thing for a shul to be in a state of building," said Rabbi Elliott Malomet of the Highland Park Conservative Temple-Congregation Anshe Emeth. "It signals the future, it's a signal of strength, creativity ingenuity."

Malomet said the sanctuary will be expanding by 5,000 feet and will be facing in a new direction.

"It's going to face east," Malomet said. "Until now the sanctuary has unfortunately faced north."

Ultimately it will be a brand new shul, he said.

"We have a building that has been used in ways it was never designed for," he said. "With the right kind of thinking and architecture, we have a new sanctuary, social hall, new library, a new beit midrash."

Malomet said the fire was in some ways a blessing in disguise.

"This is an opportunity for us," Malomet said. "As sad as it was, it gave us the opportunity and now that you have that you can reconfigure this."

He said the old sanctuary was 38-by-100 feet and was 2,000 square feet; the new one is going to be 50-b- 84 feet and 4,000 square feet, doubling in size.

"The whole key was to reconfigure space in a way that will be useable," Malomet said. "Creating your space is all about deciding who you are."

Currently, everything is on schedule with the construction and in the end the building will be very efficient, he said.

"When you build a house, you decide about what you need, you assess your priorities and that is a very healthy process, and we've done all of that," he said. "We know there will be something really great at the end."

Temple administrator Linda Diamond said in addition to adding a new sanctuary and social hall, there will be a new parking lot, a new gym, and an elevator.

"Everything is going to be different," she said. "There's going to be a chapel, we are going to have a state-of-the-art daycare center on the first floor. The back of the building will become the main entrance. We are going to have a beautiful social hall and a very nice catering facility."

Diamond said that since the day of the fire none of the temple's programs, religious services, or activities have stopped or paused.

"The synagogue is growing," she said. "In the last two months we've had seven young families that have joined. We hope to continue to grow."

She said everyone at the shul is very excited about the temple and what it will bring to the community when it is completed.

"It's going to be brand new, but they are repeating a lot of the elements," Diamond said. "The character of the building will fit into Highland Park and the neighborhood that we're in."

Overall, the renovation is a positive thing for the congregants, but even bigger for the community as a whole, she said.

"Clearly, we needed to do something in the face of the fire," Diamond said. "It gave us an opportunity to listen to what the congregants were looking for in a shul, and all of those ideas, thoughts, wants, and needs were incorporated in the design of the new building."

She said once the board and the rabbi began speaking to an architect about what should be done, the congregants realized an opportunity was there to build a better temple and they needed to act, she said.

Highland Park resident Barbara Cohen and a member of the temple for 45 years said she is extremely excited about the renovations.

"I am thrilled out of my mind," Cohen said. "I am particularly thrilled because we have been assured that next Rosh Hashanah we will be here in our home instead of in the high school," Cohen said.

Cohen said she is the High Holidays seating co-chair and she watched her fellow members get less happy each year as they attended services in the high school instead of their temple.

"We are just beside ourselves; this is our home," she said. "The high school has been wonderful to us, but it is not home."

Cohen said it will be a new beginning for everyone at the shul.

"I know it will be completely different, it's going to be wonderful and I am very thrilled that we have been able to raise the kind of money that we have been able to raise," she said.

Cohen said after having temple offices on Raritan Avenue for the past year and a half this truly is a homecoming, and means a great deal to the congregation.

"When I first came into this building, we had been on Raritan Avenue, we had an office on Raritan Avenue which was wonderful," she said. "When I came in this room and saw it painted and ready, I had tears in my eyes."