If you’re in your early forties there’s good news, there may be a new senior’s facility in place by the time you are ready to celebrate those golden years. Well, ok we exaggerate a bit, but it sure does seem to be taking a long time to replace the current facility Acropolis Manor.
Thursday however, there were signs of progress, in a front page story the Daily News reported that Northern Health had finally picked someone to get the ball rolling on the long anticipated project. After going through a lengthy process of decision, the decision was to pass on the prospect of private sector partnership and to ahead and build the facility on their own.
The decision to build finally brings to an end the controversial discussion around possible privatization agendas and the other unknowns that seemed to follow this project around from year to year.
But with progress, apparently comes setbacks, while they are now prepared to get the project underway, there will be yet another delay before a new structure is up and running.
Five months ago, anxious seniors were told they would be wandering the halls of a new home no later than early 2008, as it turns out that timetable has been knocked back to late 2008.
When the new home for seniors is finally opened, the old Acropolis will be torn down and with it a long and interesting part of Prince Rupert’s history. You can discover all the details about the shiny new building to come in this from Thursday’s story.
NEW ACROPOLIS PLAN MEANS EXTRA DELAYS
By James Vassallo
The Daily News
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Pages One and Five
Northern Health has finally picked someone to spearhead the building of an Acropolis Manor replacement facility – themselves.
“Northern Health is going to be designing, building and operating the campus of care facility in Prince Rupert,” said Angela Szabo, Home and Community Care manager at a meeting with the seniors’ community this week. “We had talked about the possibility of a private-sector partnership … and over the summer we had an opportunity to review the proposals that came forward for the design and operation.
“We’re very fortunate the board approved for us to go ahead as Northern Health.”
However, the new completion deadline of late 2008 was met with grumbles from some seniors because they were promised the facility would be completed in late 2007 or early 2008 in a meeting just five months ago.
In February of last year, NH also reported that they would build the facility without outside help – but then decided to see if there was any additional interest from private operators – and that construction of the new facility would start between April 1, 2005 and April 1, 2006.
“I know it’s still a little bit of time away, but I do think we have to celebrate the gains we’ve had and the fact that we’re actually moving forward with this project,” said Szabo. “The year and a half will pass very quickly.”
When the facility is completed it will bring together 15 specialized rooms for assisted living that include kitchenettes and living room areas, 56 complex care beds for those who can lo longer live independently, two palliative (end of life) care beds and three respite beds, for seniors that require short term stays, for a total of 86 beds. The facility will be in the shape of a cross and utilize a ‘hub’ model giving NH the ability to have additional wings added to it in the future. A tender will be put out in February 2007 and a construction contract awarded in March 2007.
In addition, NH announced the replacement facility will be built over the current site of Summit Place, meaning that building, which will be used as the construction management area, has an uncertain future.
“We could move it but one of the challenges Northern Health has is we don’t have any land to move it to and we’re not in the position right now to purchase additional land or rent space in order to relocate Summit Place,” said Sue Beckermann, Health Services Administrator, of the double-wide trailer that is currently used to provide a variety of mental health initiatives. “Having said that, there are no fixed plans at this point around how we would manage this issue, whether as a community we might come up with a location for it, whether we’d like to see it used as something else (or) we might want to consider selling it – there’s a lot of different options.”
Northern Health also reiterated that the current Acropolis Manor will be torn down. “(Acropolis) will be between the Hospital and the new facility and the challenge for us was always providing the food, the laundry and the housekeeping support,” said Beckermann. “We will continue to do so, so we need to make sure we’ll have a covered link so that we can manage the transportation … of all the things we may need to take between the facilities.”
The splayed-out cross design of the building also requires that Acropolis comes down in order to put in adequate parking. However, it will remain as is until construction of the new facility is completed.”
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