MILLINOCKET – Thirty minutes of aerobics, StairMaster, treadmill and bicycle work, followed by leg presses, extensions and curls. Then there’s bench presses, pectoral lifts and biceps and triceps curls. That finishes 64-year-old Raelene Comstock’s workout for the day.

“I come every day,” Comstock said Wednesday. “It’s wonderful for me to have this here. The people are nice, you feel good doing it, and you have so much more energy.”

Geneva Pelletier, 53, follows the same routine.

“When it’s open seven days a week, we’ll probably come here seven days,” Pelletier said.

The two Millinocket residents are part of what Millinocket Regional Hospital officials think is a healthy trend: people coming to their White Birch Medical Center’s new Lifestyle Fitness Center to get themselves in better shape.

The yearlong, $1.1 million renovation of the White Birch building is almost finished. Exterior painting and paving and some minor interior beautification – mirror installation, pool chemical balancing and other checklist items – is ongoing, said Dale McLaughlin, MRH’s director of plant operations.

The renovation “went well,” McLaughlin said Wednesday. “It pretty much stayed on track and on budget.”

The hospital’s business office is also due to move into White Birch as part of the hospital’s space consolidation and service expansion plan that fueled the renovation.

Under the plan, White Birch combines the MRH occupational and physical therapy facility with the work done at the former Facility of Occupational and Rehabilitative Medicine, or FORM center on Connecticut Avenue. The hospital’s former physical therapy space at 200 Somerset St. now houses offices.

Located at 899 Central St., White Birch’s grand opening is set for Sept. 8, but the facility is already taking patients for the hospital’s Rehabilitation and Wellness departments, said Nicole Osborne, a physical therapist who helps rehab and wellness patients.

“This is like a mansion compared to where we were,” Osborne said. “Before [at 125 Connecticut Ave.] we had a small gym and three small treatment rooms. This gives us the opportunity to treat patients at a modern facility with up-to-date equipment.”

The renovation gives Katahdin region residents the largest all-purpose health club, exercise gymnasium and workout center in the Katahdin and Lincoln Lakes regions, said Bradley J. Wheaton, a fitness assistant who helps run the fitness center.

For $35 per month, Wheaton said, any resident can pump iron, swim or use the center exercise machines, which include four treadmills, three stair-steppers, two stationary bicycles and an elliptical trainer. The monthly fee will go to $45 in September.

About 168 clients have joined the fitness center since it opened this spring, up from about 90 at the old facility, Wheaton said.

“More people are coming in just as fitness clients for a workout and a shower before they go to work,” Wheaton said.

The stigma that White Birch is only a rehab center for people suffering from physical injuries or maladies is fast disappearing, he said.

Only a shortage of qualified trainers prevents the fitness center from being open seven days a week.

White Birch Medical Center

WHAT: A newly renovated rehabilitation, wellness and physical fitness center run by Millinocket Regional Hospital

WHERE: 899 Central St., Millinocket

WHEN: Fitness center hours: 6 a.m.-7 p.m., Monday-Friday; physical therapy and rehabilitation, 7 a.m.-4 p.m.

HOW MUCH: $35 monthly for fitness center users

FOR INFORMATION: Call MRH at 723-5161 or White Birch at 723-6450 (rehab and wellness) or 723-6454 (Fitness Center)

SOURCE: Millinocket Regional Hospital, mrhme.org