Strafford County rejects $150M for nursing home but OKs $6M for design
DOVER − Strafford County point out legislators have voted down a county commission-led initiative to situation a $150 million bond that would fund the building of a new nursing home in Dover to replace the growing older Riverside Rest Household.
The county delegation vote on Monday evening ended in a 16-16 tie, slipping shorter of the two-thirds acceptance needed from the physique to challenge the sizable bond proposed by the commission. The task proposal requires constructing a new 215-mattress nursing residence facility on County Farm Highway in Dover, not considerably from wherever Monday’s vote occurred, and ultimately reworking the current Riverside Rest Household into a transitional shelter modeled off Cross Streets Residence in Portsmouth.
Adhering to the unsuccessful vote to concern the bond, county delegation members passed a movement for the issuance of a $6.2 million bond calling for the job architect, Concord-primarily based agency Warrenstreet, to complete a full design of the facility in the up coming two years, in accordance to county commission chairperson George Maglaras.
In executing so, elected officials from Strafford County in the upcoming legislative session will be presented the option in the long run to agree to fund the probable undertaking.
“It’s a great compromise and it moves us forward on having a new nursing household, which is sorely desired,” he explained. “Everybody in the space agreed it was sorely required, there were being just inquiries about the prices.”
The thought was 1st offered to the legislative delegation before this year, then elected officials authorized funding for an architect to be employed.
Warrenstreet co-owner and principal planner, Jonathan Halle, spoke to county delegation members on Monday evening prior to the votes.
The nursing residence, at first slated to span 330,000 square toes, was formerly priced at $170 million, although the proposal was scaled down to 231,000 square toes and dropped to a cost of $139.4 million, according to Halle.
Expenditures from the first proposal have been lowered by numerous elements, nevertheless predominantly by a around $21.6 million reduce that arrived from getting rid of 80,000 sq. ft of unfinished basement area from the design and style. The unfinished room could have been employed for potential growth, per venture paperwork.
The reduced selling price of the proposal was attained also by lessening the property’s loop road from a two-way public avenue to a 1-way fireplace obtain lane, as very well as by decreasing the building plan by five months, primarily based on the decreased dimension of the developing.
The cost estimates were being fashioned with elevated prices in thoughts, and Halle pointed out that the figures have been prepared in accordance with a 10{3ad958c56c0e590d654b93674c26d25962f6afed4cc4b42be9279a39dd5a6531} inflation level and beneath the assumption that the challenge will not go out to bid for 18 to 24 months.
“What’s in perform is the good quality of the constructing or the sizing of the constructing, and that is what we’ve carried out below,” mentioned Halle. “We’ve eradicated some sq. footage and we brought the number down.”
Strafford County Administrator Ray Bauer passionately said that a driving drive in minimizing the size and rate of the proposed facility is since, at $170 million, the nursing dwelling did not have the votes important for acceptance.
“We have to believe about our citizens,” he implored. “We have to imagine about the inhabitants that we have now and that we’ll have in the potential.”
Registered nurse Brianna Haskins-Belanger has worked at the Riverside Relaxation Household since 2009. The rest residence personnel informed county legislators that the present constructing, crafted in 1978, is riddled with asbestos, includes shared bedrooms and bathrooms, has air exchange deficiencies and a lack of air conditioning.
“If it is not crafted nowadays, the cost would be exponentially much more to develop in the long term. We have a building that is not ready to meet today’s requires,” she explained.
Dover resident Chuck Rhoades said that the county evidently showed its assist for the proposal when it re-elected its three Strafford County commissioners very last month, a trio who shepherded the venture forward.
“Engage in a shared eyesight for what’s best for our county,” he explained to the elected officials.
Cynthia Walter, a fellow Dover resident, voiced her support for the project, contacting it the “economically sensible matter to do, as very well as the humane issue to do.”
“We know that good nursing households conserve dollars since improperly built nursing homes raise high priced well being outcomes on the individuals as very well as the employees, and people can price tag substantial amounts. So it is improved to style and design the most effective and health and fitness-delivering natural environment you can,” she stated.
Some customers of the county delegation and the typical public spoke in opposition to the project, which includes Dover City Councilor Fergus Cullen, a single of three Republicans who ran to come to be a Strafford County commissioner in November but misplaced.
Cullen remarked that the system of putting collectively the proposal has been rushed and came with quite very little enter from the public.
“I do consider that we need to have a contemporary nursing home to provide our local Medicaid suitable inhabitants. I’m not certain that the county automatically needs to operate it,” he reported.
In the past, Cullen said that solutions to privatize a new nursing household should be thought of. Prior to legislators on Monday evening, he also expressed unease about taking the current Riverside Relaxation Property and converting it into a transitional shelter.
“I have big issues that a facility like this will come to be a magnet for persons in need to have of company in a way that could have side repercussions that we never hope,” he said. “I have compassion and empathy for people who are homeless. But if you feel the county has a homeless problem now, wait until finally we have a everlasting facility.”
The motion to situation the $6.2 million bond to have Warrenstreet create a facility style and design was handed on a 22-10 vote by county delegation members.
