By Patrick Adrian
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NEWPORT — The Sullivan County Commissioners looked at current design plans Monday for a proposed $35 million renovation of the county nursing home, which project to significantly improve operating efficiency, modernize residential spaces and enhance the aesthetics in community areas.
Architects from the New Hampshire firm Warrenstreet Architects walked the commissioners through blueprints, models and interior plans for the project, which would replace the oldest of the nursing homes’ three interconnected buildings — the Sanders building, constructed in 1931 — with a more energy efficient building. The new design would expand the overall facility space to provide more family meeting areas, redistribute nurse workstations to allow staff to stay closer to their patients, reduce the resident-to-bathroom ratio from 4:1 to 2:1 and ensure that every residential room in the facility has a window.
Among the design’s key additions will be “Main Street,” an atrium which will contain shops and services — both new and existing ones — like the library barber shop, hair salon and the tawdry shop.
“[The tawdry shop] is our boutique where we have donated clothing,” said County Facility & Operation Director Mary Borque. “Bringing that down to Main Street allows something where a resident can go in with their families and pick out a few things.
Main Street will also provide a chapel and meditation area. Commissioner Ben Nelson said that there is a chapel in the McConnell building, but residents cannot access it without being buzzed in by staff.
“We’ve looked at Main Street and picked those places across the facility that are popular activity areas, to try to bring life to it,” Borque said.
Jonathan Halle, principal and managing member of Warrenstreet Architects, said that Main Street will also have a general store, vending area, bank and post office as well as contain offices — both for the nursing home and county officials — and a reception desk.
Interior Design Director Ruth Hadnot said that she wants to use interior materials to create a “Golden Age of Industry” motif. This could include light fixtures with an industrial-period design or incorporating raw materials like brick and wood stained panels to echo the textures of historic mill buildings and covered bridges. The materials themselves would be durable and heavy duty, but simple treatments can create a desired effect at an economical price.
“Basically, everything here is going to be ironclad and easy to maintain, but also have a homelike feeling to it,” Hadnot said.
The project would not increase the facility’s residential capacity, which would stay at 156-beds. However, the plan aims to provide a self-enclosed rehabilitation ward, which would enable staff to contain all patients receiving physical therapy in the same location. Additionally, since the nursing home’s current occupancy is 137 residents, Halle said that the facility could actually generate revenue to taking patients from other programs into its rehabilitation center.
The design also creates nursing stations in each end of the residential floors, something that the current buildings were not designed to accommodate. These stations will enable nursing staff to remain in the areas with their patients, with everything needed during a shift accessible in the same location.
The county’s nursing home consists of three interconnected buildings, built at different times over a nearly 70-year period: the original Sanders building, which is now closed; the Stearns, built in 1970; and the McConnell wing, built in 1997. The Sanders and Stearns buildings in particular are not designed to meet modern regulations or residential expectations of today’s seniors or families. Sanders did not have bathrooms connected directly to the residents’ rooms. Additionally, staff served the residents meals in their rooms because there was no dining room. In most rooms, four residents per ward share a single bathroom and the showers are located down the hall. While Stearns has a dining room, there is an overall lack of common space for families to visit with residents.
Halle said that modern construction standards for nursing facilities require a maximum of two beds for every bathroom and one window for every room with a bed to provide sunlight.
Some changes have happened so recently that rooms in a similar renovation project at the Rockingham County nursing home, which Warrenstreet designed the plan for, are already out of date one year after construction completed.
Halle told the commission that Warrenstreet hopes to have the final design plan complete by the end of February. Once the project has a new estimate for the project’s construction cost, the commission will need to bring the proposal to the county delegation to seek their approval.
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