This week Phil Salgado from Westcastle Land Developments and Gordon Cory from Worthington Business Consultants met with Kimberley Council’s Committee of the Whole to talk about a new development in Marysville.
The development, Kimberley Crossing, will be an Age in Place community for seniors. Age in place is a concept that has been introduced to the United States over the past ten years or so, Salgado says, and is now starting in Canada.
It basically means a campus that provides different levels of care, depending on seniors’ needs — from living independently in a duplex town house, to supportive living, such as what is offered at Kimberley’s Garden View village, to full assisted living, each in a different building.
All three levels of care would be offered in one location, a piece of land Salgado has owned for some time between Mark Creek near Marysville Falls and the Kimberley Golf Course.
“It’s a nice site, you have nature trails, a golf course right near by and the falls. It’s an inspiring place to be,” Salgado said.
The important thing right now as the plan is in its early stages, says Cory, is to be flexible.
For instance the first building that will go up is the assisted living facility, but it would also have spaces for respite care and rehab beds. The rehab beds could house people recovering after surgery, maybe a hip replacement or knee replacement. They need care, but perhaps not the level of care provided in an expensive acute care bed in the hospital.
“We are not looking to compete with hospitals or existing facilities,” he said. “But we feel there is a need in this area. We want to sit down with medical professionals in Kimberley and Cranbrook to see what is most needed. We feel there is a huge shortage of beds in a higher level of care.”
The first building, the respite and residential short term care facility, would be three floors high with 68 rooms. The other more independent living facility, which will be the last to be built is planned to be a four storey building with 45 units of studio, one and two-bedroom apartments. Meal services will be offered as well as many other amenities. In and around these two facilities will be nine duplexes of patio style units with two-bedrooms averaging 1000 sq. ft. each. These duplexes may be available for strata-type ownership. People living in the duplexes would have access to the amenities offered by the other facilities.
The whole age in place concept is that people move to higher levels of care as needed but stay in the same community.
“I think the demand for facilities like this has been pretty clearly defined,” Salgado said. “And supply is more and more restricted. We think we know what’s necessary but we need to know the demands from the community. We want to be flexible. In the assisted living facility we can shift the use of beds as needs require. At the end of the day, it costs a fraction of what a hospital costs.”
The developers are planning a public meeting in Kimberley to introduce their ideas and seek feedback, but the date for that is not yet set.
Salgado says that the hope is that there will be shovels in the ground on the first phase by 2017 the construction season.