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The opening date for the $22 million Health and Wellness Center at Suffolk County Community College’s Northampton campus continues to be pushed back month after month, adding to the countless delays the facility has already faced over the years.
Aside from the plans first being proposed 46 years ago, construction did not start until two years after the official groundbreaking ceremony and was still in progress during the originally scheduled opening date of September 4, 2018, the first day of last semester.
The spring semester has now begun and it is still not open. While construction is complete, the college still needs to receive approval from the Suffolk County Department of Health Services, which could take months, and a certificate of occupancy before opening, Benjamin Zwirn, the college’s director of legislative affairs, said. The college is also in the process of hiring two final employees, an aquatics master and a certified wall climbing instructor.
“We were hoping to have it open this week, so some of the classes that were going to use the classrooms in the facility had to be moved to other places on the campus,” Mr. Zwirn said on January 29, referring to the building’s two classrooms.
Mr. Zwirn said he is pushing to get the building open as soon as possible, mentioning that Southampton Town officials are eager to see it open as well.
The 48,000-square-foot complex contains an eight-lane, 25-yard indoor swimming pool and a 13,500-square-foot gymnasium with an indoor track, basketball courts, a weight training room, a rock climbing wall, locker rooms and showers, Drew Biondo, a spokesman for the college, said.
The complex will be open to the public when it is not in use by the college for a modest fee, which has yet to be determined. Mr. Zwirn said the prices will likely be similar to those at the college’s health facility at its Michael J. Grant campus in Brentwood, which offer $10 daily passes and yearly membership fees for an average of around $260.
“That pool is heavily used by people in the community—different senior citizen groups, community groups,” he said, referring to the Brentwood facility.
Mr. Zwirn added that he wants to see if local rescue dive teams are interested in using the Northampton indoor pool for training.
on Feb 5, 2019