Assisted living project would be great news for the entire area
December 23, 2020, 12:02 pm
Everyone is tired of Covid and is ready for some good news.
The front page news this week is about a project that would be good for the immediate Moosomin area and the entire region.
It’s not just good news, it’s great news that a development group and a financial group are working together on a proposal for a personal care home/assisted living facility in Moosomin.
The new development would take the place of Pipestone Villas Phase 3, and would be oriented north-south on the west side of the Pipestone Villas property.
The building footprint is similar to the two existing Pipestone Villas buildings and Travis Penner of Bridge Road Developments, which developed the Pipestone Villas initially, says the new building will blend in with the existing Pipestone Villas.
The building would initially include 14 personal care spaces and 28 assisted living units, providing a type of care that has not been available in the area before. If there is greater need in the future, up to 14 of the assisted living units could be converted to personal care spaces.
The community of Moosomin has been working on bringing a facility like this to the community for many years.
It was a decade ago that a group of local individuals approached Caleb Group about building an assisted living facility in Moosomin.
The company was interested, and the property on Wright Road where Pipestone Villas stands was originally assembled with the Caleb project in mind.
The original proposal was for a 94-unit seniors complex, and didn’t go ahead for reasons that had nothing to do with Moosomin.
Bridge Road came to Moosomin with a proposal for a different model. Bridge Road officials spoke at a Moosomin Chamber of Commerce meeting about their vision, and by the end of the meeting, a committee was coming together that would eventually create Pipestone Villas phases 1 and 2.
Pipestone Villas took care of the senior housing shortage, but there is still a shortage of assisted living capacity and personal care spaces.
The town’s economic development committee took the initiative to contact a few companies in the assisted living business and discussions over the last 18 months have led to the current proposal.
The current proposal would include personal care spaces and assisted living suites, and would provide some services to the existing Pipestone Villas. With 48 units in Pipestone Villas and the new 42 units, that’s 100 housing units that can have services provided to them—so Moosomin could have similar services as envisioned in the original Caleb proposal, just with 100 units, not the originally planned 94, and it will have been a much more winding path than originally envisioned to get there.
A lot of local people have worked hard to try to bring a project like this to Moosomin.
If this project goes ahead, Moosomin and area will have an assisted living facility to complement its current senior housing, nursing home, and health care facilities, a facility that will mean that seniors and senior couples can stay in their local area rather than having to move to a city to access some of the services offered through assisted living facilities.
If this project moves forward, it will be a testament to the hard work of a lot of people in trying to bring a project like this to fruition.
The next step at this point is for investors to get together and raise the funds for this project. The proponents have some innovative ideas on how to handle the investment side, and everyone who thinks they might be interested in investing in this project should be planning to attend one of the investor information sessions slated for January 19.
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This Christmas will be like no other. Families will not be able to gather in the same ways they traditionally have at Christmas. Friends won’t be able to get together and party the way they have in Christmas seasons past. Those of us who try really hard to get to church at least once a year will miss that Christmas Eve in-person service in some cases this year.
But thanks to technology we can still be together in different ways. But don’t forget what the season is all about. About the birth of bright hope in a dark world and within ourselves. About the infinite possibilities in the birth of a child who can change the world. About a miracle that unites Heaven and Earth. About the confidence and hope that the light of a tiny spark, a tiny flame, can shine through infinite darkness.
As you take time out to celebrate this special time of year, however different your celebrations are this year, here’s hoping you have a very merry and meaningful Christmas.
