Loading...The Board of Directors of St. Barnabas Senior Living Services announced that after extended, careful and prayerful consideration, it has decided to close its senior apartment facility located at Pine and Sixth Streets in Downtown Chattanooga and sell the building to an investor group headed by local real estate developer John Clark.
After the transaction closes, which is expected in Spring 2012, the apartment facility will close gradually, as the 100 seniors who now live there find new homes.
"We are committed to helping each of those residents find a new place to live,” said Board Chair Gaines Campbell. "No one will have to leave for at least six months, and some residents may end up at St. Barnabas for a few months longer.” The 40 employees of the facility are expected to be transferred to or absorbed into St. Barnabas’s nursing and rehabilitation facility, which is located adjacent to Siskin Hospital for Rehabilitation near Erlanger Medical Center and will continue to operate with no change in its mission or work.
"We have a nursing and rehab facility that pays for itself and an apartment facility that does not. We just can't continue to operate that way," said Campbell. "We're not happy about closing the apartments, but we've run out of options."
For several years, the Board has been attempting unsuccessfully to find a buyer who would continue to operate the building as an assisted living/apartment complex. Recently, an investment group led by Clark approached the Board with an offer that would allow St. Barnabas to refinance its major loan and pay off debts, as well as provide funds to relocate seniors who currently live at Pine Street.
St. Barnabas's nursing home facility opened at the Pine Street location in 1965, followed by the retirement/apartment complex in 1966. Around 2000, according to Campbell, the Board became concerned that the organization's finances were not strong enough to support or grow the organization. That realization spurred a plan to build a new nursing facility which would better support the St. Barnabas mission and finance the renovation of the aging Pine Street buildings. The new nursing and rehabilitation facility opened in 2007 and the Board considers it successful, but it is not generating enough income to fulfill the original plan to renovate the Pine Street building and subsidize the apartment facility.
St. Barnabas is an independent not-for-profit nursing and rehabilitation facility. St. Barnabas Senior Living Services assists independence through a successful short-term therapy program as well as other nursing and rehabilitation services. For more information, call (423) 847-4100 or visit www.st-barnabas.com.
