Print This Page Shepherd Center Celebrates Opening of $53 Million Expansion March 26, 2008 Media Contact: Jane Sanders (404-350-7707) Shepherd Center, which is consistently named one of the nation’s top rehabilitation hospitals by U.S. News & World Report, recently completed construction on the 171,480-square-foot, seven-story addition named the Jane Woodruff Pavilion. The project, designed by the architectural firm Heery International Inc., also included renovation of an additional 86,850 square feet in Shepherd’s existing facilities. “We are now able to serve more people with spinal cord and brain injuries, chronic pain, multiple sclerosis and other neuromuscular diseases or illnesses,” said James Shepherd, Shepherd Center co-founder and chairman of the Board of Directors. “It is thrilling to see this goal become a reality.” The expansion created rooms for more beds and allows Shepherd Center to convert all of its existing four-bed patient rooms to two-bed rooms and some two-bed rooms to singles. Now, with 120 beds, Shepherd Center can accommodate more inpatients, as well as have more flexibility regarding patients admitted, Shepherd explained. With its international reputation and federal designation as a Model System of Care for spinal cord injury, Shepherd Center’s services are in demand. The hospital has attracted patients from 47 states and a number of foreign countries. Construction on the Jane Woodruff Pavilion, which began in 2004, was funded by donations and bonds. It added space to Shepherd’s Billi Marcus Building, which is adjacent to the Shepherd Building, which opened in 1982 as the hospital’s first facility on its present campus on Peachtree Road. In addition to more space for patient rooms, the Woodruff Pavilion also includes new therapy and treatment facilities, updated and expanded areas for patient therapeutic recreation and other programs, a new cafeteria and dining area, a larger intensive care unit and additional office space. The expansion also features a new lounge for families to gather, a large volunteer workspace, and more clinical facilities – including the Dean Stroud Shepherd Pain Institute and the Andrew C. Carlos MS Institute – to expand and centralize Shepherd Center’s outpatient services area in order to make it more accessible to patients and families. During the construction project, dozens of well-known, local interior designers teamed up to apply their ideas and talents to give Shepherd Center a distinctive and visually pleasing interior environment. Donating their time, as well as items, 23 designers blended schemes, colors, fabrics, art and furniture in imaginative ways to create new spaces, including a doctors’ lounge, doctors’ conference room, reception areas, restrooms, waiting rooms, elevator lobbies, dining areas, auditorium spaces, pool area and the volunteer workroom. On March 25, donors, volunteers and former patients attended the dedication and blessing ceremony for the Woodruff Pavilion. The Rev. Ken Grosch, Ph.D., Shepherd Center chaplain, gave an invocation, and the Rev. Victor Pentz, D.Min., senior pastor of Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, performed the blessing. Also speaking were co-founders James and Alana Shepherd, Shepherd CEO and President Gary Ulicny, Ph.D., and U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.). After the ceremony, guests had the opportunity to take self-guided tours of the hospital. “We are excited to share this celebration with our supporters,” James Shepherd said. “We remain grateful for and dependent upon their continued gifts of time and money that bring hope and restoration to people whose lives have been forever changed by catastrophic injury or disease.” Shepherd Center’s campus expansion is continuing with the construction adjacent to the hospital of the Irene and George Woodruff Family Residence Center, which is also being funded with donations. This facility, which features 84 wheelchair-accessible suites and is expected to open by early summer, will provide complementary housing to out-of-town patients’ families and day program patients. The residence center also will provide space for patient recreation and offer gathering areas, including a garden, where patients and families can develop friends and find peer support. As part of that construction project, Shepherd Center soon will begin demolishing the former Hawthorn Suites hotel next door to the Center and use that land as a green space on Peachtree Road until it is needed for future growth of the hospital. “The residence center will be a great complement to the new family lounge in the Woodruff Pavilion,” James Shepherd said. “Together, these spaces will enhance the ability of families to be involved in the rehabilitation and recovery of their loved ones." Fast Facts - 20 new patient beds
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