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Construction almost complete on Timber Ridge Health Care Center, site of former Valley Crest.
Photo shows the nearly completed $12 million, 180-bed Timber Ridge Health Care Center.
Submitted Photo
The site of Luzerne County’s former Valley Crest Nursing Home will soon have a new building and name: Timber Ridge Health Care Center.
The new $12 million, 180-bed facility is expected to open in early 2010, and construction is about 75 percent complete, according to the home’s business development specialist Virginia Hunish. The facility is located near the existing home in Plains Township.
Complete HealthCare assumed ownership of the financially troubled nursing home in January 2006. County officials have been eager for construction of the new home so they can sell the old building and surrounding property.
Minority Commissioner Stephen A. Urban said a recent appraisal has valued the old home and 58 acres at around $6.5 million.
Complete HealthCare officials chose the name Timber Ridge from numerous suggested names submitted by employees, Hunish said.
A transition team is in place to start preparing staff, residents and families for the move, she said.
Though residents are excited about the new state-of-the-art facility, the move is bittersweet for residents and staff who have been at Valley Crest for many years, she said.
Several residents have lived at Valley Crest since 1987, she said.
The new facility will contain therapy suites, a fully equipped beauty salon, resident lounges with Internet access and a secured patio. A 30-bed specialty unit has been designed to meet the needs of people with Alzheimer’s disease.
Each resident room will be equipped with telephone and cable television service and climate controls. Bathing suites will contain whirlpool tubs.
Valley Crest currently has 154 residents.
But Hunish said the count is lower than usual.
She said this is because a wing of the existing home was closed in preparation for the transition.
She expects the population to increase when the new home opens.
A county steering committee will come up with a plan to sell the old home and land.
Options include: selling the entire parcel as is; leasing out the old building and selling the remaining land; or selling the building and land separately, county officials have said.