Building a new Woodmere rehabilitation center

Woodmere-based SentosaCare has invested $90 million in construction of a new three-story, 184,000-square-foot building at the intersection of Franklin Place and Central Avenue in Woodmere to replace the existing 45-year-old Woodmere Rehabilitation & Health Care Center at 121 Franklin Place facility the company now rents adjacent to the construction site.
Expected to be completed in two years, the new center will house 280 patients. Currently there are 150 patients at the existing center. According to SentosaCare officials the new building will provide double the living space compared to the present building. Both private and two-resident living quarters will be available.
“Instead of taking the easy, and some might say, less burdensome road of renegotiating our current lease, which expires in about four years, my partners and I decided to make a threshold decision to design and construct a state-of-the-art facility that promises our patients their families and our staff a commitment to a 21st century health care experience as opposed to a commitment to the best of what could be offered in a 20th century building,” said SentosaCare principal Benjamin Landa.
Landa along with Ben Philipson are the primary principals of SentosaCare, which owns several nursing homes and rehab centers across Long Island, New York City and in Westchester and Schenectady counties, including Brookhaven Rehabilitation & Health Care Center in Far Rockaway.
The rebuilding of Woodmere Rehab had a controversial past. When plans were first proposed more than seven years ago, residents were up in arms about a planned multi-level parking garage on Hartwell Place, a block over from the center. Plans call for a basement garage and street level parking where the Five Towns Senior Center was on Franklin Place.
When the new building open in 2017, it is expected to provide an array of specialized services, including vent unit, and physical, occupational, speech, respiratory, IV and oxygen therapy, in-house dialysis, wound care, colostomy, ileostomy and gastrostomy, tube care, tracheostomy care, Alzheimer and dementia care, hospice services, pain management and psycho-social services.
“Our new facility signals my partners’ and my pledge to a neighborhood we have served for many years and to the residents of the greater Five Towns, who we look forward to serving for generations to come,” Landa said.