It’s readily apparent that conducting a complete renovation of a continuing care retirement community is a huge undertaking — especially when the property is nearly 40 years old. It’s a painstaking process that involves dismantling and rebuilding infrastructure within an active, fully operational eldercare community.
Westminster Village, a CCRC in Bloomington, IL, has been undergoing just such an ambitious makeover and recently completed the critical first phase of a three-part project.
The new Martin Health Center greatly increases the space capacity for residents of Westminster’s skilled nursing unit. CEO Barb Nathan says the 40-acre campus has allowed for building expansion while keeping the ample green space (which she calls “sacred ground”) intact.
“We outgrew the old one and needed more beds,” she says. “It is gut-wrenching to tell a resident who desperately needs a bed that there isn’t one available.”
An RN who is “a geriatric nurse at heart,” Nathan facilitated the project with great attention to detail. For instance, she looked at obtaining materials, surfaces and lighting that are glare-resistant to protect vision-challenged residents.
“This is the fourth construction project of my career and one thing I’ve learned is that it is extremely important to get input from residents and families,” Nathan says. “It follows the rule that you don’t buy a chair without a resident sitting in it. Because of that, the team has to be intimately involved in every detail … It takes time and you have to make the time.”
Big changes
The changes made to the existing property were extensive — one year’s worth of activity that included neighborhoods being built, entrances moved, huge windows installed and common spaces enlarged — which meant disrupting residents’ lives while the heavy lifting commenced. Architect Gordon Gilmore acknowledges that keeping the inconvenience to a minimum presented a major challenge.
“You have to tiptoe around everyone,” says Gilmore, principal with the Dallas-based architectural firm PRDG.
Even so, the residents were more interested and curious than disturbed by the construction, Gilmore says.
“They were always watching and asking questions,” he notes.
For Nathan, the key is effective communication with residents to keep them updated on construction developments as they occur, and if possible, turn an inconvenience into a positive experience.
With the skilled nursing portion of the CCRC’s renovation complete, Gilmore says it’s simultaneously a culmination and “a building block that will support all the other phases going forward.”
From the October 2018 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
