Rehab Center Planned
The diligent souls who have been showing up for regular exercise at Body Tech, the Amagansett fitness center, have been warned, Southampton Hospital, which took over the facility last April, will move out in March. The hospital will take the fitness equipment with it to a new building on the Montauk Highway in East Hampton, across from the Cook Agency, but the new facility will be a rehabilitation center rather than a health club.
According to plans submitted Jan. 22 to the East Hampton Town Planning Board, the hospital intends to turn the 3,400-square-foot building into a physical therapy and rehabilitation center similar to one it runs in Westhampton Beach. It is making the move through S.H.A. Properties Inc., the for-profit subsidiary of the South amp ton Hospital Association.
Design Plans
Dr. John J. Ferry Jr., the hospital's president, explained that a physician's prescription will be required to exercise there, by appointment and with supervision, and no memberships will be sold. "The losers will be those who want nonsupervised fitness" workouts, he added.
The center will include a traction room, weight-lifting area, physical therapy department, small waiting room, and showers, said Barbara Feldman of Avatar East, the East Hampton architect designing the interior.
Patients, generally, will be those who have had surgery or suffered an injury and who need continuing exercise following a course of physical therapy. Others, eligible for "phase three" cardiac rehab, will have had open-heart surgery or a heart attack, or are considered at high risk for heart disease, but do not need a physician on site during exercise.
Use Change
Health insurance companies are "slow" to cover post-physical therapy personal training, said Dr. Ferry. However, some, including Aetna U.S. Healthcare, have begun to offer patients in other states a specific annual stipend toward exercise as preventive medicine.
"It sounds like something that is legally workable," said Job Potter, a Planning Board member. The hospital will need a special permit to convert the building's use from retail to "semipublic," he said, and approval from the Building Department and the County Health Department.
Richard Balnis, a physical therapist with offices at 300 Pantigo Place, said the hospital "had approached" him to work at the rehab, but added that he was "comfortable where I am" and liked his autonomy.
Future Plans
The new rehab will have 16 parking spaces toward the rear, enough to accommodate five employees and as many as six to eight patients who may be passing through at any given time. The site is "maxed out," however, said Mr. Potter, noting that there is no room for expansion.
The hospital expects to sign a three-year lease with a three-year renewal option with the building's owner, Harvey Bennett.
The building is just east of a row of buildings that accommodates FizzEd, an exercise and dance studio which engendered vocal opposition when it opened regarding parking and traffic.
The hospital has been considering building its own 18,000-square-foot facility on land it owns on Pantigo Place but is not ready to proceed yet, said Dr. Ferry. Eventually the hospital hopes to rent out physician's offices and have a rehab as large as 9,000 square feet on that property.