by Monica Chamness
Staff Writer
With the resurgence of a residential downtown has come a renewed interest in personal and professional services.
Physical Therapy Services is just one company looking to take advantage of the growing interest in living downtown. The company opened an office in the LaVilla Professional Building and saw their first patients last week.
“We feel there’s a need downtown for our type of business,” said PTS vice president John Murphy. “With all of the people working downtown and with the revitalization, we want to be part of that.”
Murphy figures the new location will appeal to busy professionals who can’t afford to take the afternoon off to receive medical attention. Others in his target market include individuals without transportation, patients in assisted living facilities who prefer not to be shuttled all over town, people looking for pampering and hotel guests needing care.
Physical Therapy Services has four other local offices, offering physical therapy and massage therapy treatments. Specific massages include Swedish massage, deep tissue, neuromuscular, sports massage, craniosacral and pre/post natal massage. Other treatments include cryotherapy, thermotherapy, electrotherapy, muscle stimulation, ultrasound, inotophoresis, biodex testing rehabilitation, traction, soft tissue mobilization, edema reduction, lumbar stabilization, gait training, vestibular training, prosthetic training and active/passive/ROM exercises.
“We use only licensed therapists,” said Murphy. “It costs more to operate that way but we truly believe you cannot provide good quality having an untrained person with two or three patients at a time.”
Inside the LaVilla facility is a small gymnasium and three soundproof, climate-controlled private rooms for therapy sessions. The staff will initially have one physical therapist, one massage therapist and a front desk person. Murphy’s wife Penemarie is working with him as a licensed physical therapist. She founded the company in 1990 and, along with her husband, remains a co-owner. Murphy expects to double his staff within six months. He also hopes to expand his empire to the beaches and West Jacksonville.
“Downtown was a vision we had a couple of years ago,” said Murphy. “I anticipate within a year somebody else [in the same field] will move into the downtown area. For physical therapy, I think it [the downtown site] will be comparable to our busiest clinic on Atlantic Boulevard. Massage-wise, I think it will do better than the rest because of the hotels nearby.”
Murphy has networked through the Chamber of Commerce to establish contacts. Other marketing tactics will include offering free chair massages in all of the large office buildings downtown and knocking on the doors of human resource professionals to hawk the advantages of his services for employees of big companies. Next year he wants to step his efforts up a notch by advertising on radio and television.
“We want people, when they think of physical therapy and rehabilitation, to think of us first,” he said, adding he’s planning a grand opening celebration in December.
“We still have to get a few pieces of equipment in,” said Murphy. “People don’t know we’re there yet so we’re going to wait a month to see how it goes. I think it’s going to take off as soon as the word gets out.”