DATE: Tuesday, August 5, 1997               TAG: 9708050093

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A12  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY TONI GUAGENTI, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   71 lines

GATED COMMUNITY FOR ELDERLY PLANNED ON CAMPUS OF CBN

An affiliate of the Christian Broadcasting Network unveiled plans Monday for a $100 million upscale retirement community on the campus of CBN.

The gated community, called Founders Village, will consist of apartments, duplexes or single-family homes for independent living. Thirty beds will be dedicated to assisted living and 60 beds for skilled nursing and a special dementia unit.

``This is a wonderful day for me and for CBN,'' said CBN founder and chairman Pat Robertson said Monday at the Founders Inn & Conference Center.

The announcement comes the day before the City Council receives a report on the need for more retirement facilities at the Beach to meet a growing demand for senior housing.

The report by the Senior Housing Committee shows that more retirement facilities are needed for moderate-to-low income seniors, but CBN and Founders Village officials said there is a need for upper-income retirees as well.

Depending on the unit's style, they are expected to cost between $90,000 and $240,000. In addition, seniors will have to pay a monthly maintenance fee of between $1,400 and $2,500. The facility will be open to people 62 and older.

Regardless of the unit, each resident will be provided 30 meals a month, security, utilities, standard TV cable, building maintenance, groundskeeping, scheduled transportation, emergency nursing, a bed in the health center, use of the recreation facility and a community building.

A similar facility in terms of price - Westminster Canterbury - has a waiting list of six months to three years for independent living apartments near the Chesapeake Bay.

Robertson said it could take up to 18 months to sell the units, but he predicted they would be sold in one to two months.

Judging by the calls received by a toll-free number set up to field Founders Village inquiries, Robertson might be right. Robertson announced the availability of Founders Village to viewers of The 700 Club at about 8:30 a.m. Monday and offered the number. By 5:20 p.m., the number had logged about 1,700 calls from interested people, said Patty Silverman, a CBN spokeswoman.

This marks the second attempt by Founders Village, a not-for-profit business separate from CBN, to build a continuous-care facility in South Hampton Roads.

The first was rejected by the City Council nearly four years ago because facility officials wanted the project to be tax-exempt. Council members refused the tax-exempt request. This proposal does not include that provision and would add more than $500,000 to city coffers.

Mayor Meyera E. Oberndorf praised Founders Village, saying, ``It can only benefit the city.''

Plans for the original Founders Village deviate from the original. The first proposed a high-rise facility. This time the plan includes a village concept, with a health center on the 60-acre wooded lot. The health center will be divided into pods where eight residents and one nurse live and work around a living room.

C.A. Volder III, president of Founders Village Inc. and vice president of land development for CBN, said the retirement community is a natural extension of the ministry, even though retirees don't have to be affiliated with CBN to live there.

Construction can begin at the site off Centerville Turnpike as soon as 65 percent of the units are reserved, said C. Edward Vandergriff, executive vice president of The Haskell Co. of Jacksonville, Fla., the firm developing and marketing the community. Occupancy is expected in late 1999.

The project still needs to receive rezoning and conditional use status from the City Council to go ahead.

A planning official said Monday that an application has not yet been submitted. ILLUSTRATION: [Drawing]

This is a sketch of how an apartment building at the new Founders

Village will look. It is to be built on Old Centerville Turnpike.

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