Proposed Wellness Center At Central Regional No Ordinary Gym
Private developer plans to build multimillion dollar project on high school campus
What's next?
It's a question Central Regional Schools Superintendent Triantafillos Parlapanides asks himself on a daily basis.
"You have to think five years down the road," he said in a recent interview.
Parlapanides will have several announcements to make soon about new additions to the 98-acre Central Regional campus off Forest Hills Parkway.
But one project he can talk about now is a multi-million dollar wellness center a private investor wants to build on school property.
Gary Reidy - a managing partner in Princeton-based Fitness and Wellness Professional Services - wants to pour between $26 to $30 million into the project on land the Central Regional school district owns.
The district would lease the property to the firm for 20 years. Once the company has earned back its initial investment, the center would begin to generate revenue for the district through profit sharing, Parlapanides has said.
The fee-based facility would also be open to surrounding towns and could provide 180 jobs in the community, he said.
"It would be open to everybody," Parlapanides said.
And it won't be your standard fitness center, with just fitness equipment and a pool. The project also includes a cardiac rehab, massage therapy and doctors and nurses on staff, he said.
"Unlike a regular gym, when you sign up, you get a full physical," Parlapanides said. "They do bloodwork, everything."
Doctors and fitness trainers will then tailor the type of exercise program needed for each individual, he said.
"After four months, you get another physical," Parlapanides said.
The St. Barnabas Healthcare System would partner with the company to provide doctors and nurses to help staff the facility. Services would include an Olympic-size swimming pool, complete gym facilities, cardiac rehab, physical therapy, a therapy pool, a wide variety of fitness classes, personalized health and fitness assessments, wellness programs and lectures, a restaurant, and a daycare center, he said.
The fee-based wellness center would be open to the public and could provide up to 180 jobs for the community, Parlapanides said.
The center will consist of one 50,000-70,000-square foot building, with two, possibly three stories, he said.
Reidy is finishing up wellness centers in several other New Jersey communities. Once he is done with those, he will turn his attention to Central Regional, hopefully by the end of the summer, Parlapanides said.
Oscar Wilde
1:23 am on Wednesday, February 22, 2012
guess some people havent learned their lessons from Ritacco corruption
Ed Thomas
1:39 am on Wednesday, February 22, 2012
What evidence do you have of corruption?
bob
8:05 am on Wednesday, February 22, 2012
put it where food town was,or Woolworth's
heather
8:43 am on Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Very glad to see some forward-thinking individuals who care enough about the future of the town and district to go after something like this. Way to go again, Dr. P! A great future for CR and Berkeley Township! If the budget won't come to you, continue to find ways to make your own budget!
Oscar Wilde
11:31 am on Wednesday, February 22, 2012
why are we paying taxes if they can just lease the land the taxpayers own and then charge the taxpayers to use the facilities the same price as people from another town that doesnt pay property taxes in Berkeley
Plus sounds like alot going on in a place that is supposed to be for children to be educated......could be very dangerous with all the awful drivers coming and going....the first student to get hit by a car may not be Dr. P fault, but the 21st that gets run over sure will be.....and with all this money coming in, surely our property taxes will be GOING DOWN ......CORRECT DR. P ??????
jordan
1:25 pm on Wednesday, February 22, 2012
a neighbor's step-sister makes $83 every hour on the internet. She has been out of work for 8 months but last month her check was $21561 just working on the internet for a few hours. Go to this web site and read more MakeCash9.[com]
Hearme
4:22 pm on Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Oscar Wilde/ Morrisey, You should be grateful you can't be sued for slander when you post some of the comments you post. You make statements with no basis of truth behind them. You have never had a positive thing to say. I would be willing to bet you have never sat down with Dr. P to discuss anything he had done or plans to do. If you had you would find that he has done more and continues to do more for this school system and this town as a whole than most superintendents do that get paid much more than he does.
The wellness center would bring in rateables as well as much needed jobs to this township. If you bother to understand the way taxes and business works you would see this as a positive. Although I'm not sure you see anything as a positive.
Dr. P collects a well earned paycheck and in many places he would be considered well underpaid for what he does. People deserve to get paid for the work they do. I didn't work for free I don't expect him to either. I bet if you worked you didn't do it for free either. He didn't decide that his check comes out of taxes, that's just the way it works. Stop attacking him for working hard and getting paid to do so. Going to college and working his way up the ladder to a higher position is the way to get a higher paid job which is exactly what he did. Many jobs are paid from taxes.Do you expect them all to work for free? If so you are living in a dream world. So what is your real problem with Dr. P., Oscar Wilde?
violet smart
10:13 pm on Friday, February 24, 2012
Hearme you don't seem to have a problem slandering individuals as you have done on previous articles, we all know you care strongly about Dr.P so why don't you just relax Tom....I mean Hearme
Momof3boys
6:14 pm on Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Over paid babysitter?! Oscar Wilde you're an uneducated over opinioniated jerk!!
MaryBeth
3:30 pm on Thursday, February 23, 2012
I understand where Oscar is coming from...as taxpayers we need to know what is happening and be vigilant. So there are extremes on both sides. Some of you worry me in your blind trust of the powers that be. Trust but verify....
Also, I want to know how if/when the huge field of solar panels is going to make money for Central Regional School District. I'm fine with it if they do but who is managing that money?! There is no way that the schools use the energy provided by that many panels - why so many if not intention to backfeed to electric co.?
Also, It is fair to draw an analogy to Ritacco....that was a fiasco and we SHOULD learn from history. I was just in TR North a few weeks ago for a game and then TR South this last weekend, what a bunch of dumps! Apparently, the money made at the Ritacco center does not benefit those schools...
How much will CR School district lease that property for? Where will that money go?
I'm all for it - if there is taxpayer oversight and in depth reporting. There are a lot of questions here.
Hearme
12:08 am on Friday, February 24, 2012
I am definitely not a blind faith kind of person.All the questions you have are good ones and have been answered over and over. I know it is available to the public if you just contact the superintendents office they direct you to where to find it or even set up a meeting with the superintendent himself to explain it all.That's my point. Get educated before making accusations.Oscar Wilde never bothers to do that.
Robert Everett
11:30 pm on Saturday, February 25, 2012
You have a point Mary Beth, the public should be much more diligent and ask lots of questions - but I cant say that asking them on public forum with a presumption or an implication that there is some great sinister plot is appropriate or fair; especially if you do not even have the slightest details of what you are talking about. If you need to know something about CR, just ask - 732-269-1100.
The solar panel project has been well covered by the Patch and other media, but I will recap it here for you & give a quick update. The entire project has been completed at ZERO cost to the taxpayers. The panels were installed under a power purchase agreement. What that means is the company & it's investors installed the project at their cost and CR has agreed to buy the power generated back from the company at a significant discount to lower our energy costs. After an extended period (20 years I think) CR will own the panels and then, depending on how the system ages, may actually generate a profit.
Has it worked? So far, very well; preliminary estimates show CR (YOU) saving thousands of dollars per month - we expect to save around $100,000 of YOUR money this year.
As for the wellness center, the plans are still being developed but the concept and the facility looks very promising. I caution this is still a project very much in the development stage but the enitre purpose is to improve facilities at our school while developing a revenue source other than TAX DOLLARS.
Dennis Smith
11:58 pm on Friday, February 24, 2012
Times are changing get with it. You go Dr P
Hearme
7:33 pm on Saturday, February 25, 2012
Violet, I will you the award for the one who made me laugh the hardest today.I always find it amazing when I defend someone I believe in, I seem to get accused of being that person. Do you find it so hard to believe that someone might believe he is doing a great job? Besides the fact that I have a feeling he has to much on his plate to post as much as I do. So far I have been accused of being Jason Verano and now Dr. P. There might have been a few others, I haven't paid much attention to many of the ridiculous posts.I would also like to point out that Dr. P. has a PHD and god knows he spells, types and in general writes better than I do. But thanks for the compliment.(Maybe my writting isn't as bad as I thought, but I doubt it.)
As for saying I slander people in other threads you are absolutely incorrect. It would only be slander if the things I say are lies. Unfortunately, everything I say is the truth. I know it's pathetic that the people I have spoken about in a negative way are that disgusting but the truth is they are.
Sand Piper
11:15 am on Thursday, March 1, 2012
Have to agree with you that there are a lot of good things Dr. P has done for Central. In my opinion he really is a true gentleman and a class act who looks out for the well being of our kids. However, in light of the past scandal at Toms River, we as Berkeley taxpayers who for many of us just saw property tax assessments go right thru the roof, should be very vigilant when it comes to any indication of the misuse of our public tax dollars, school system or otherwise. It is our earned right as American citizens to question, and nobody should try to say otherwise. For example, even tho we have a newly constructed gymnasium at Central that was funded with school tax money, why does our competition cheer squad have to travel to and pay to practice at a private gym in Lacey that just happens to be owned by their coaches? What's so wrong with the new gym we already have? A conflict of interest here? Maybe, but then again it could be all for 'safety reasons' which is a little odd because last year's cheer squad with different coaches had no issue using their own gym for practice. Is this just the tip of the iceberg at Central involving some individuals in authority there? Every day it seems a new can of corruption worms gets opened for all the world to read about or see on the 6 o'clock news. As much as we would all like to live in a perfect world, it will never come to pass as long as there are those trusted administrators and politicians who use their position for personal gain.
Sand Piper
10:59 am on Saturday, March 3, 2012
While I'm at it concerning Central cheerleading, let's bring up the matter of how 2 dedicated volunteer asst. cheer coaches were suddenly given the bum's rush. In 2011, these unpaid coaches were able thru hard work, school spirit, and love for their kids, to bring Central Regional to a 6th place finish at the Trenton State high school competition. For their reward, they were unceremoniously dumped right after tryouts had taken place for 2012. If they were so supposedly lax in their duties of filling out paperwork which allegedly endangered squad insurance coverage as the AD claims they were, then why did he, as the man in charge and the one ultimately responsible for this paperwork to be filed in a timely manner, allow a whole season to go by before lowering the boom? It's no secret that there was continuous conflict between this man and the head cheer coach prior to this. This was in my opinion, a classic case of railroading subordinates in order to complete a personal agenda of installing cronies into a job that enabled them to use their coaching position to promote their private Lacey Twp. business at Berzerkley taxpayers expense. Were there kickbacks involved and who really is the one responsible for endangering the insurance coverage? Because it involved cheerleading and not the allmighty football, few people even noticed. This deserves an investigation and it should not be rocket science to figure out exactly should be shown the same door he so easily showed to others.
Hearme
1:42 pm on Saturday, March 3, 2012
Sand Piper I never think we should have blind faith in anyone. I absolutely think we should QUESTION these things. Questioning and accusing with no basis are completely different. I can only speak for myself. I know when things are happening at the school I do question the administrators and have many meeting with them in regard to the things that go on there. I believe in being informed. That is why I have said instead of claiming there is some scam that maybe some of these accusers could go to the many meeting held that explain what is happening . If you can't make them I know Dr. P makes ever attempt to meet with people to clarify any misunderstandings or explain the details of the projects.