At Special Reception, Friends of Nathaniel Witherell Presents Town of Greenwich with $1.75 Million Check, Announces $9.8 Million Raised to Date for Project Renew
David Ormsby (center), Chairman of the Friends of Nathaniel Witherell, presents a check to Greenwich First Selectman Peter J. Tesei (second from right) at a special reception and preview tour of Witherell’s new Rehabilitation Center. Also in photo are Allen Brown (left), Witherell’s Executive Director, and Debby Lash (second from left) and Karen Sadik-Khan (right), co-chairs of Project Renew with Mr. Ormsby.
David Ormsby, Chairman of the Friends of Nathaniel Witherell, Inc., announced yesterday that the Friends have helped raise $9.8 million in funds from private citizens and public sources for Project Renew, the capital campaign to modernize and refurbish The Nathaniel Witherell, the highly regarded, short-term rehabilitation and long-term nursing care center owned by the Town of Greenwich.
At a special reception for supporters, Mr. Ormsby presented Greenwich First Selectman Peter J. Tesei with a check for $1.75 million, as part of the Friends’ commitment to raise $7 million over four years to assist the Town in funding the costs of Project Renew. The check supplements the $1 million contributed by the Friends to the Town in June 2013. Completion of Project Renew is presently scheduled for September 2014, with total construction costs projected at $26 million.
The check presentation and announcement were made in Witherell’s new 4,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art Rehabilitation Center. It was followed by tours of the Center and a reception in the adjacent Rose Garden for supporters of the project.
“The Friends of Nathaniel Witherell believe that the $4,065,000 raised to date for Project Renew from private citizens, and the up to $5.8 million raised from other sources, continues one of our town’s finest traditions, which is a public/private partnership to support Greenwich’s extraordinary institutions,” said Mr. Ormsby.
In addition to the $4,065,000 raised from private donations and pledges, including $1 million from the Dalio Foundation, the Friends collaborated with the Town of Greenwich to generate the following funds to reimburse the construction costs of Project Renew:
- A grant of $500,000 under Connecticut’s Small Town Economic Assistance Program.
- A contribution of $4,490,918 from Connecticut Light and Power Co. as a result of the organization’s agreement to purchase CT State Historic Structures Tax Credits generated by Project Renew.
- A grant for $150,000 in energy conservation tax credits under the State’s Neighborhood Assistance Act (pending).
- Up to $600,000 in future direct payments to the Town resulting from an application by the Nathaniel Witherell Building Committee, in collaboration with the Friends and Northeast Utility Services Company, for energy savings associated with new boilers, HVAC, and energy systems installed during Project Renew.
- A grant for $48,892 from the United States, under its 2008 HUD Community Development Block Grant Program, to fund part of the cost of the Friendship Garden component of Project Renew.
Debby Lash, co-chair of Project Renew with Karen Sadik-Khan and Mr. Ormsby, commented: “By obtaining these private and public funds, we will help insure that Nathaniel Witherell can be fully modernized and updated, enabling it to continue its 110-year tradition of serving our community’s needs.”
The New Rehabilitation Center
Thanks to Project Renew, Witherell’s new short-term Rehabilitation Center offers individuals recovering from joint replacement surgery, cardiac events, stroke, or other serious illness the latest in physical and occupational therapy −as well as speech and language pathology services. Licensed therapists provide short-term rehab patients with therapy up to seven days a week.
Witherell’s new 4,000-sqare-foot Rehabilitation Center features:
- Defined suites for physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech and language pathology services
- Training rooms for activities of daily living: kitchen, laundry, and bathroom
- State-of-the-art therapy equipment
- Modalities, electronic stimulation therapy (e-stim), ultrasound
- Fine and gross motor movement activities
- Cutting edge testing and intervention for cognitive, speech, and language impairment
- 42 private rooms adjacent to the Center available for comfortable and complete recuperation
What Project Renew Will Accomplish
Project Renew will dramatically improve the infrastructure and environment at Nathaniel Witherell by increasing the number of private rooms from 26 to 64, eliminating 10 four-bedded rooms, and remodeling and redecorating 86 resident rooms. Public space will be similarly enhanced. Plans call for doubling the size of the rehab center, increasing the number of family reception areas, modernizing three existing elevators and adding a fourth elevator and new emergency generator, along with other upgrades to the facility. The architectural and engineering design for Project Renew also reflects sensitivity to the Witherell’s historic significance — in August 2010, Nathaniel Witherell’s campus was listed on the National Register of Historic Places by the U.S. Department of the Interior.
To learn more about Nathaniel Witherell, the public may call Allen Brown, Executive Director, at (203) 618-4323, Scott Neff, Development Director, at (203) 618-4227, or visit us online at www.nathanielwitherell.org .
