Grey County Council has decided on a concept for the new Rockwood Terrace long-term care home in Durham.
Council has chosen the second of three options, one being a 128 bed long-term care home, the second being a long-term care home with additional assisted living and a small commercial space, and the third being a larger campus of care that would also have had a seniors’ living apartment.
The chosen long-term care home, village square and assisted living option (Option 2) currently has a total project cost of $108,498,050. It involves a 5.61 per cent levy increase. Council has approved the concept, but the actual design stage will come later.
The full campus of care (Option 3) would have had an 8.29 per cent levy increase, and the long-term care only build would have had a 2.28 per cent increase.
This chosen option has 40 assisted living suites and 128 long-term care beds as well as a ‘market’ area with retail and food spaces.
The estimated annual cost to run it is $5.9 million, which is about 12 per cent more than just a long-term care bed facility but staff say this model provides a broader scope of services. They also note it would be a single building which staff say helps achieve net-zero targets.
A full campus of care which would have had a seniors’ apartment building would have cost about $140 million and would have required a level of borrowing that would have taken the county close to its debt ceiling.
During the discussion, it was noted that regardless of the option council chose, staff would look into ways to reduce the cost. One possibility would be to sell a 22 acre adjacent site or the existing Rockwood Terrace site. They could also explore ways to qualify for more grants and advocate for more provincial funding for long-term care construction.
The design is only in the conceptual stage at the moment. Colliers Project Leaders is the company managing the project, and County CAO Kim Wingrove says it is on track to be completed in the summer of 2025. Kasian architects is coming up with a preliminary design for the long-term care home.
Meanwhile, redevelopment of the already existing Class ‘A’ long-term care home in Markdale, Grey Gables was been placed on hold last summer by County Council. In August of 2021, county council received a report showing a significant increase in anticipated costs in the two long-term care builds planned in Markdale and Durham, up 42 per cent from previous estimates to over $108-million (or about $400,000 per bed). The County is not required by the province to re-do Grey Gables.
The County is required to upgrade Rockwood Terrace in accordance with the Ontario Long Term Care Homes Act by 2025.
Hicks says, “We think we’ve got a lot on our plate right now, we’re going to focus on what we need to do which is Rockwood, and we’re going to do a great job of it, and we’ll leave it for the next council to decide what, if anything we’re doing with Grey Gables. Grey Gables is actually hosting a behavioural centre– beds that are really focused on people with high needs like dementia.”
Hicks says, “There’s going to be a new hospital going there,(Markdale) so we’re hopeful that specialized care, combined with people who might focus on research with respect to memory and dementia care might be a really good fit there. It’s an asset, it’s a long-term care facility, It’s going to continue, it’s not going anywhere.”
He adds, “At the same time we can really just bite off what we can chew and do a really good job with Rockwood.”