Valley News – Renovation searching likelier for Sullivan County Nursing Dwelling as new facility would price a bundle

UNITY — Sullivan County officers look to be leaning towards a $54 million renovation of the existing county nursing house, rather than in search of to establish a new a single due to the better fees of new design.

Officers estimate an completely new nursing home possibly at the county advanced in Unity or in other places could charge someplace between $75 million and $80 million, said Mary Bourque, the county’s director of facilities and operations, throughout a Monday assembly of the Govt Finance Committee held in man or woman in Newport and also streamed on Zoom and Facebook Stay.

Creating new also would need returning to the drawing board to structure a new undertaking, which could delay the start off of building by a couple of a long time, Bourque mentioned. It also could entail getting land for an additional $500,000 and relocating absent from the Unity complicated, which would increase about $1 million in once-a-year running expenditures, she mentioned.

Really should officers approve the renovation venture as intended, “the wheels could be turning proper away with a building begin in early tumble,” she reported.

The 156-bed nursing dwelling, which sits in Unity next to the county’s jail, has antiquated heating, plumbing and electrical techniques, County Supervisor Derek Ferland mentioned.

County officials have been speaking about improvements to the nursing household for about five several years. Throughout that time, a few components have pushed the believed costs of the task upward: adjustments to federal polices and building codes increases in the expenditures of building elements and labor and the need to do the renovation project in phases to reduce the effect on inhabitants and employees in the facility, Ferland stated.

“If we’re heading to stay in the nursing home enterprise as a county then we have to do a little something,” he reported.

In September, the Sullivan County delegation rejected the renovation proposal, which at that stage was approximated to charge $49.5 million, by a vote of 11-1.

As proposed, the renovation would incorporate gutting the nursing home’s Stearns setting up, earning aesthetic improvements to the McConnell making and demolishing the Sanders creating to apparent place for an 82,000-sq.-foot addition.

The Sanders making was built in 1931, Stearns in 1975 and McConnell in 1997.

The strategy would increase area to residents’ rooms, lessen the ratio of people per toilet and boost the volume of communal room.

At the time of the September vote, delegates voiced desire in checking out the probability of relocating the nursing property from Unity to a different section of the county, as properly as considerations about enterprise a project of that scale during the COVID-19 pandemic and just in advance of the November election.

But just after Bourque’s presentation on Monday, officials expressed support for returning to the renovation challenge.

The a few county commissioners in the meeting, Chairman George Hebert, R-Goshen Vice Chairman Bennie Nelson, R-Newport and Joe Osgood, R-Claremont, all said they ended up in favor of the renovation.

“I never comprehend placing additional income into it when the function which is been completed on this undertaking places us within just code for quite a few years to arrive,” Hebert said. “I believe it is a fantastic challenge. I’m absolutely in favor of it.”

The Govt Finance Committee is anticipated to reconvene within the up coming 7 days to vote on a suggestion to the entire delegation. Must officials decide to move forward, the delegation would want to approve the task by April 30 so that the county can utilize to the New Hampshire Municipal Bond Lender in time for the July bond sale, Ferland reported in a Wednesday email.

In addition to the renovation program staying the reduce-expense option, Ferland explained that it can make sense to transfer ahead now while “interest prices are at historic lows.”

Nora Doyle-Burr can be arrived at at [email protected] or 603-727-3213.