Rehab center to offer care with flair -- Will also provide tax ratables, jobs

By ELAINE D'AURIZIO / The Record

LINCOLN PARK - The newest addition to a growing local "health campus" is bringing in a lot of green, for both clients seeking soothing rehabilitation and a borough looking for a revenue and employment boost.

When it opens, likely in April, the Jerry and Dolores Turco (JDT) Medical Rehabilitation Center will feature the Atrium Healing Garden, offering the sights, sounds and serenity of an Asian garden.

"It will stimulate the senses through tropical plants," said Mimi Feliciano, who took over the 547-bed Lincoln Park Renaissance Rehab and Nursing Home started 45 years ago by her late parents, Jerry and Dolores Turco. "It will have the ambiance of a spa/hotel, which is unlike any rehabilitation center ever built."

The $13 million center will also be a double asset to Lincoln Park, bringing in at least $100,000 to $150,000 each year in new tax dollars after a pending reassessment, and projecting the hiring of 50 to 75 new workers registered nurses, nurse's aides and therapists.

Other facilities on the so-called health campus off West Pinebrook Road are the Lincoln Park Care Center and Lincoln Park Hospice.

The center is Feliciano's brainchild. When she took over her parents' short and long-term nursing home seven years ago, she asked short-term patients what they wanted during their stay.

"The industry is changing," she said. "I came in with a fresh set of eyes and interviewed people. I learned that short-term or sub-acute patients don't want to be in a nursing home."

Although the center is on land zoned residential, town planners approved the application in December 2007 because "the applicant made a good case as to why it was a good project," said Joseph Maiella, borough administrator and planner. "It served the changing needs of the health industry and was going to bring in people from other towns. It was also with the understanding that they wouldn't increase the number of beds."

That meant making 60 more suites or private rooms, with beds transferred from the nursing home.

"It looks beautiful and is a great addition to the town," said Mayor David Runfeldt. "Some of the services they will provide will be a great advantage to the residents. My understanding is that they are going to open it to other towns. It's a win-win situation."

On the standard medical side, "the rehabilitation center provides complete inpatient and outpatient speech, occupational and physical rehabilitation services," said John Passuth, senior account supervisor and public relations officer. "Therapists will offer residents advanced rehabilitation when recovering from surgery, illness or injury."

On the agenda are community outreach programs to seniors where they can get medical information and socialization, screenings and evaluations. They can even invest in a "bank" where a person gets credit for services to others and can claim that help back when they need it themselves.

Then there are the special refinements: The 65,000-square-foot "state of the art" rehabilitation center will combine Eastern and Western medical practices to create a healing environment.

The short-term or subacute patients who stay in one of the 60 private rooms will be catered to in style, Feliciano said, adding "You're going to feel as if you are in a suite in a five-star hotel. I wanted to give people what they wanted, and what they said they wanted is privacy and to be away from long-term care patients. They don't want to feel as if they are in a nursing home."