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Photo Mary Ann Bragg
Interim Administrator John Zoltwoski and Director of Nursing Kathy Griswold laugh at a joke during last week’s Cape End Manor Board of Directors meeting. |
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Photo Mary Ann Bragg
New England Deaconess Association CEO Herb Taylor holds an umbrella over the Cape End Manor’s food services director, Eric Branco, during a lunch barbecue last Friday. |
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Deaconess takes over at Manor
Fast-selling senior housing in Orleans seen as good sign
By Mary Ann Bragg & Kaimi Rose Lum
Banner Staff
PROVINCETOWN — A sell-out of new senior housing 30 miles away bodes well for similar units planned here, New England Deaconess Association managers said last week.
A new independent living facility in Orleans, Wise Living, has sold out of its 41 units, a spokesperson for Wise Living on Cape Cod confirmed this week, and a similar Falmouth facility under construction is nearly sold out.
That news has buoyed Deaconess representatives as the non-profit began its one-year management contract with the town at the Cape End Manor nursing home on Friday.
By next July 1, according to Town Hall plans, Deaconess will take over ownership of the Manor completely and transform the facility and land nearby into a “care campus” complex for seniors.
Deaconess must pre-sell 60 to 70 percent of the independent living units, though, before permanent bank financing can be obtained and the construction begun. “We really don’t feel there will be an issue with pre-sales,” Deaconess CEO Herb Taylor told the Manor’s board of directors at a meeting last Thursday. The challenge, Taylor said, is to find the right configuration of units, whether assisted living, independent living or some hybrid, to match the needs of the Outer Cape.
In particular, movement in the industry is toward more independent living units with modified “assisted living” types of services, Taylor said. “My hope is that we’d be able to work a lower percentage,” he said of the bank requirement for 60 to 70 percent pre-sales.
There are 86 independent and assisted living units in the original plan and 41 nursing home beds. Each independent living unit is sold with a $300,000 cash deposit, with $270,000 returned to the estate or the tenant when the unit becomes empty.
Deaconess is still looking for a local space for its sales office, Taylor said.
A survey will be sent out next week to 4,000 older adults from Provincetown to Orleans, Taylor said, to help Deaconess better assess the correct balance between independent and assisted living units. A second survey to adults in the region who serve as “advisors” to seniors will follow, Taylor added.
Deaconess representatives are in contact with councils on aging from Orleans to Provincetown. Taylor, who is a Methodist minister, has begun meeting with local religious leaders. Plans also include contacting local chambers of commerce and real estate agents.
The resident census at the Manor was reported as 41 last week, continuing what administrators said has been a steady rise since the positive Town Meeting vote on the Deaconess proposal in April.
Town representatives also are pursuing five grants from the Robert Wood Foundation to offset the $1.9 million contribution property taxpayers will make to the project. The grants relate to new technology for lighting, flexible room design and embedded sensors in everyday apartment objects, such as a blood pressure monitor in a reclining chair.
In the last few weeks Deaconess representatives have been present at the Alden Street facility, talking with residents and staff, and that presence continued last Thursday and Friday. “They are definitely on the right track, instead of just walking in the first of July and saying, here we are, you know?” union steward Brian Shea said this week. “I was still asked by a couple of the employees about their jobs, although it was made very clear, that everybody does have their job.”
“It’s very nice to have them here,” registered nurse Rob Planinshek said on Friday.
All of the roughly 60 workers of the Manor will remain town employees during the one-year Deaconess contract with the exception of Food Services Director Eric Branco, who has been hired by Deaconess. Former Manor CEO Dennis Anderson left his job as of last Thursday but will be a consultant on the construction permitting process, and Manor administrator Eileen Thomas will retire at the end of July.
Deaconess’s vice-president of operations, John Zoltowski, is the interim Manor administrator, and a new director of nursing, Kathy Griswold, has been hired, and both were at the Manor board meeting last Thursday.
Zoltowski said he wants a “seamless transition” to occur over the next several months. “We’re proud of the home,” he said. “There is not the need coming in to make major adjustments. We will come with efficiencies, and we’ll also leave with some.”
During the Deaconess-sponsored barbecue on Friday, residents sat in the dining room with Taylor towering over them, clearing away their plates. Everyone was offered a piece of the celebratory sheet cake. There were balloons hung from the ceiling, and banners strung up outside and above the nurse’s station. A steady rain fell outside, dampening Branco’s grilling activities. Two women sitting in chairs along the hallway were not sure what all the hullabaloo was about, as was another woman with a book of crossword puzzles, who said the puzzle distractions were good for a rainy day.
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Post fireworks brawl explodes in Provincetown
In the News
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Jul 7th, 2005