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New Mississippi Healthplex Caters to Athlete Training, Therapy

MADISON, Miss. – Birmingham, Ala.-based Brasfield & Gorrie completed construction on the new $16 million Healthplex Performance Center in Madison earlier this month. The facility follows a national trend of combining medical offices with fitness and sports facilities, allowing people to receive training, treatment and therapy all under one roof.

A joint project between Mississippi Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Center and Baptist Health Systems, the facility is designed to help people who need rehabilitation as well as offers sports and fitness activities for a broad range of athletes. The two-story, 100,000-square-foot sportsplex and medical office building features a training floor with strength and cardio equipment, an indoor walking track, indoor pool, therapy pools, an indoor field house and athletic field. It also includes 20,000 square feet of medical office clinics for the Mississippi Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Center, the Eye Group of Mississippi, Image Optical and Mon Ami Spa & Laser Center.

The outside turf field is 45 yards by 55 yards with an outdoor sprint track that is 70 yards long, reported the Missisippi Busines Journal. That is not all though. The performance weight training area contains more advanced weight training equipment specific for training athletes such as weight sleds so that athletes can complete a sled workout. Additionally, the fitness center features cardio equipment such as treadmills, bikes, stair steppers, rowers, elliptical trainees, and adaptive motion trainers. There is also a traditional fitness center with weight training equipment and a functional training area for body weight training and working with kettle bells and medicine balls. Plus, there is an indoor track around the general fitness area that will be about a twelfth-of-a-mile long.

The complex features a wellness clinic that will be staffed by a nurse practitioner offering help with preventive medicine, nutritional advice such as help with weight loss and developing an exercise program. Group exercise classes are also available, including Zumba dance, yoga, body sculpt and boot camp type classes. There are also group water exercise classes in the aquatic facility, which includes a warm water pool with programs for arthritis patients.

“This is an exciting time in the history of Madison,” Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler told the Mississippi Busines Journal. “This is only the beginning. Madison will one day be the area of specialized medicine for the state of Mississippi.”

While Brasfield & Gorrie served as the general contractor on the project, Atlanta-based Oswell + Nitishin served as the architect. Construction started in November 2012.