Here’s a plea to all the sharks out there: Treat the nice ladies with the good habits and gentle demeanor right.
It might be tempting to let your inner investor instincts take over, but, please, give the ladies their due. And then some. In return, they’ll promise to keep their rulers away from your knuckles.
OK, that last line was a weak shot, using a decades-old stereotype.
But in truth, an order of nuns needs probably does need to keep its calibrated measuring tools at the ready to fight for what they deserve. They are entering a scenario that many veteran long-term care providers can learn from. The sisters probably held out longer than many others might have, but they now want, and need, to jettison Marian Manor, an outdated long-term care community.
As my colleague Marty Stempniak wrote last week, the Boston-based Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm are looking to downsize.
Their ace in the hole is the prime real estate in South Boston that their large skilled nursing and rehab facility sits on.
The acreage should bring a pretty penny. The building, not so much.
The physical plant is due for hospice itself. The nuns took over the building, an old hospital, in 1954. One can only imagine what 65 years of LTC, along with an acute-care presence before then, has done to the infrastructure.
In other words, it’s clearly at or past retirement age. Various other providers are finding that their facilities — many opening back in Medicare and Medicaid’s first days in the late 1960s — also should be put out to pasture.
So it will be interesting to see what the sisters’ business representatives can do for them. Sure, they already have the biggest land agent of all on their side, but they still might appreciate some help finding somebody to fill the offering basket to the brim on this transaction.
If that goes well, then they can continue their good work in a more modern, perhaps more compact, setting.
Just give the ladies their fair due.
Follow Editor James M. Berklan @JimBerklan.
