ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, September 13, 1996 TAG: 9609130144
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
MEMO: NOTE: Shorter version ran in Metro edition.
The $4 million replacement facility for the Roanoke City Nursing Home will be built on U.S. 220 South on a hill next to Wal-Mart. It will be the first component in a high-security ``gated'' community, the developer announced Thursday.
Site work has begun for the 60-bed nursing home, said Jim Smith, president of Smith/Packett Med-Com Inc. It is expected to be completed by July 1997.
Long-range plans call for doubling the capacity of the nursing home and adding up to 500 apartments, town houses, condominiums and patio homes on the 50-acre site. Smith bought the land for $1.2million from contractor Billy Branch.
Construction on some of the independent living units should start by spring, Smith said. Purchase prices will range from $100,000 for a studio apartment to $225,00 for a patio home.
The final mix of housing for the years-long project won't be decided until a feasibility study is done, he said.
Most of the land for the development is behind Hunting Hills Plaza shopping center. The complex will be named Pheasant Ridge Retirement Community, after Pheasant Ridge Road. The road crosses over U.S.220 into the property from the upscale Hunting Hills residential community.
The current city home, which has 55 patients, is at Coyner Springs on land the city owns off U.S.460 in Botetourt County. The city home serves only Medicaid patients, and reimbursement by the federal health care program has fallen about $400,000 a year short of the operating costs.
Faced with annual shortfalls and the need to update the home, the city decided last year to consider private offers to take it over.
In August 1995, Roanoke City Council voted to turn over the city home patients and some equipment to Smith/Packett for $420,000. Smith-Packett, in turn, agreed to put up a new facility and try to locate it inside the city limits so the city could benefit from its taxes.
Smith said his company considered two sites - the one it chose, and the El Rancho property that sits on a knoll off U.S.460 across from the city's Centre for Industry and Technology.
``We wanted a tract of land that would allow us to develop a full-service community,'' Smith said.
He said the elevation of the U.S.220 property increases 100 feet from the entrance to the high point and that the rear is steep and can be kept as a wooded, secure buffer for the development.
Smith/Packett spent almost a year getting permission for the home, in the form of a certificate of need, from the State Health Department, Smith said.
Glenn Radcliffe, the city's director of human development, said the choice of a site was up to Smith/Packett. He said the city's concern was that the new nursing home provide for as many patients as can be housed at the Coyner Springs facility.
The city has agreed to pay bonuses of up to seven months' pay to workers who stay at the nursing home through the private company's takeover. Smith-Packett is obligated to retain city workers at their present pay and benefits for at least a year after the new home opens.
Smith said there are no other arrangements between his company and the city, but he will meet soon with City Manager Bob Herbert to discuss how Roanoke and his company can work together to solve the area's low water pressure.
He said he isn't looking for the city to give him anything, but he wants to talk about ``some things we can do in concert to benefit surrounding residents.''
Smith/Packett, which also bought Lynchburg's nursing home, has offices on Brambleton Avenue.
The Haskell Co., which has an office in Lynchburg, has been hired as project contractor, Smith said.
Smith said that although he has been involved in developments of all of the types of structures involved, this is the first time he has put them together in a single community. This is the Roanoke native's first development in the Roanoke Valley.
Smith/Packett was formed in 1983. It owns and operates 27 nursing homes, in Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and Arkansas.
LENGTH: Medium: 79 linesby CNB