Construction of the $27 million hospital is expected to take one year.
LUDLOW - HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital of Western Massachusetts Wednesday broke ground on a new $27 million rehabilitation hospital at the site of the Ludlow Mills off State Street.
Construction of the 74,000-square-foot building is expected to take one year to complete.
Ludlow Selectmen Chairman Jason Barroso said the development will mark the “rebirth” of the Ludlow Mills.
Barroso said the town is pleased to have HealthSouth as the anchor of the new redevelopment of the Ludlow Mills site.
Jay Grinney, president and CEO of HealthSouth, said HealthSouth is the largest provider of in-patient rehabilitation care in the U.S.
The new 53-bed all private room hospital will serve stroke victims and victims of brain and orthopedic injuries.
“This hospital will bring rehabilitative care to the next level,” said Scott Keen, CEO of HealthSouth Rehabilitative Care of Western Massachusetts.
Keen said the hospital has great patient satisfaction and great outcomes.
With new technology the care will be taken to the next level, he said.
Keen said the hospital building foundation should be poured by winter and the hospital completed by November of next year.
James Garrant, a former patient of HealthSouth who serves on the patient and family Advisory Council, said that while a regular hospital saves lives, rehabilitation hospitals “give people their lives back.”
State Sen. Gale Candaras, D-Wilbraham, said the new hospital will be “a boon to economic development.’
“We look forward to seeing the mill site fully developed,” she said.
She said that people in the building trades in Ludlow have told her they will “work through the winter and the summer and through a tornado, too.”
State Rep. Thomas Petrolati, D-Ludlow, was praised for championing the $3.7 million in infrastructure improvements for the Ludlow Mills site provided by the state and a $1.5 million environmental cleanup.
Petrolati, who lives in the area of the site, said he jogs by the facility four days a week.
The site is being developed by the Westmass Area Development Corporation.
“This is a prototype of the private and public sectors working together,” Petrolati said. “I know we will be pleased with the end product.”
U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield, said that with President Barack Obama’s new health care law, there will be 32 million more customers in the U.S. with private health insurance.
Grinney said that with the aging of the population there will be more demand for rehabilitation hospitals.