Kane centers getting independent, assisted living units
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Moving to one of Allegheny County's Kane centers will have a different meaning in the coming months.
New kinds of senior citizens housing have been completed or are under construction at the John J. Kane Regional Centers. The Kane centers traditionally have offered only residential rehabilitation and skilled nursing home services.
Office space has been transformed into a dozen independent living senior citizen apartments at the Kane facility in Glen Hazel, where the Rivermont Senior Apartments were dedicated May 12.
"Dirt is flying" at the Kane center in Ross, according to Kathleen K. McKenzie, deputy county manager.
A portion of that campus has been leased to a private developer. The Falbo-Penrose partnership is constructing 60 independent living and 37 assisted living apartments. Those new units, along with the traditional county-operated nursing home, will offer a continuum of care to older residents.
Both projects are part of the county's 2005 Kane action plan, which was designed to cut costs, realign nursing home services and provide senior citizens with more housing choices.
County Executive Dan Onorato appointed the committee that wrote the action plan, and he has led efforts to carry it out.
Other plan elements, which have already been implemented, include establishment of a new dementia unit at the Glen Hazel Kane and a transitional-care unit at the Kane center in Scott.
The fourth Kane hospital is in McKeesport.
The Rivermont apartments were constructed on two floors of an existing wing of a Glen Hazel building that had been home to offices and a laundry. The project also included gutting and renovating the third floor of the center's main building to make room for offices displaced by the new apartments.
The total cost of the project was $5.8 million, which was funded by the state Department of Welfare and distributed through the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania.
The Jewish Healthcare Foundation provided consulting assistance.
Market-rate rents for the Rivermont apartments, which include utilities and one meal a day, range from $825 to $875 per month. Residents must be age 62 or older, but they do not need to meet low- or moderate-income guidelines.
The apartments range in size from 617 square feet to 975 square feet. Each contains a kitchen, living room, bedroom and bath.
Additional information is available by calling 412-422-6191 and leaving a message.
The 60 independent living apartments under construction by the Falbo-Penrose partnership on the Kane campus in Ross are expected to be completed by the end of 2010, according to project manager Kevin Hanley.
Work began in April on phase two of the project -- 37 apartment units on the fourth floor of the existing Kane nursing home. That work is expected to be completed by February 2011.
The Ross project is being financed with the help of tax credits, and its tenants will have to meet low- and moderate-income requirements.
Applications are not being taken yet for the Ross apartments.
Seniors interested in information -- and applications, when they become available -- can call Stephanie Fuchs at 412-327-5223 to get on a waiting list.
First Published June 3, 2010 5:28 am
