Hospital buiding: LSS announces plans for Jamestown Hospital building
After Jamestown Hospital’s building is through serving patients, it will serve another purpose: housing for the community, officials said at a press conference Thursday. Although it has no new name yet, in about two years, Lutheran Social Services will use the current Jamestown Hospital building to house about 75 seniors in 50 senior-living units. The building will also house the hospital’s current wellness center and cafeteria as well as a chapel and possibly a child care facility, meeting rooms and a media center for both residents and the public.
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After Jamestown Hospital’s building is through serving patients, it will serve another purpose: housing for the community, officials said at a press conference Thursday.
Although it has no new name yet, in about two years, Lutheran Social Services will use the current Jamestown Hospital building to house about 75 seniors in 50 senior-living units. The building will also house the hospital’s current wellness center and cafeteria as well as a chapel and possibly a child care facility, meeting rooms and a media center for both residents and the public.
“We don’t want this to be just a place for people to go in their later years,” said Larry Nygard, vice-president of Roers’ Development in Fargo.
Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., helped secure more than $3 million in grant funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for the project. The total project cost is about $7 million. Additional funding sources haven’t been identified yet.
“It’s not really a building, it’s an institution,” Conrad said of the hospital facility.
Renovating the hospital is a good use of federal funds, Conrad said, because instead of falling into a state of disrepair, the building will continue to serve the community. Plus, it will bring jobs and contribute to the local economy.
The hospital renovations are an example of progressive thinking, said Mayor Katie Andersen. The senior population in Jamestown is growing, she said, and a senior-living facility accommodates for the future. U.S. Census data shows the U.S. population aged 65 or older will rise to one in five persons by 2050, according to Conrad’s office.
The outside of Jamestown Hospital will look much the same when construction begins next year, Nygard said. Community spaces like the wellness center and cafeteria are planned for the ground and first floors while the second, third, fourth and fifth floors are reserved for the housing units. Roers intends to gut the insides of those floors and remodel so rooms are specifically designed for seniors. The 50 one- and two-bedroom units will include wider doorways, bigger bathrooms and special showers with grab bars to cater to the population, Nygard said.
The wellness center and cafeteria will continue to be public spaces. The Jamestown Regional Medical Center does not have plans to open a wellness center, said Steven Halvorson, exercise specialist. So most of its patients will continue their rehabilitation exercises at the current Jamestown Hospital site.
The residential units are designed for mostly independent living, said Jessica Thomasson, director of Lutheran Social Services Housing, Inc. The facility may include services like occasional housekeeping, medication dispensing and optional meals at the cafeteria.
Thomasson said some of the residences for people with certain levels of income and others will be for any income level.
“We’ll be able to serve really the wide range of people,” she said.
Construction on the facility is expected in August on next year. Roers’ expects resident move-in sometime in late 2012.
Sun reporter Katie Ryan-Anderson can be reached at 701-952-8454 or by e-mail at kryan@jamestownsun.com
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