After providing nursing care for 65 years on its Giddings Avenue campus in Sheboygan Falls, Pine Haven Christian Communities moved their skilled nursing residents to a new nursing home at the Haven Drive campus on the north side of Sheboygan Falls on Monday.
The skilled nursing home is the first of two phases of a 96,000-square-foot, $20 million expansion. It includes 36 rooms for long-term residents, 14 rooms for rehabilitative therapy patients, and a state-of-the-art therapy gym providing both in-patient and out-patient rehabilitation services. Other features include a multi-purpose community center for community events, an educational center, and a Village Square with a café, general store, beauty salon, and room for people to gather and socialize.
The second phase is scheduled to open on August 3, and will operate under a Community Based Residential Facility license. This section includes 32 memory care rooms and eight traditional assisted living rooms. Features on the campus include household fireplaces, outdoor patios, indoor four-season rooms, and surrounding gardens and walkways for residents. The campus is built at-grade, so those with walkers or wheelchairs will have access to all features. The overall design is meant to be set up like a neighborhood.
The carefully orchestrated move took place between breakfast and lunch on Monday, with all residents and their beds being moved to the new campus. While the residents were in the dining room having breakfast, the team of workers began breaking down and transporting beds to the new home.
“As soon as breakfast was complete, our buses began transporting residents,” said social worker Kelly Rabe. “We organized it by household, to keep the transition smooth and efficient, so that there would be minimal disruption to our residents’ normal routine.”
By lunch time, all 44 residents had completed the move, and were able to take their first meal at their new home.
Only the residents of the nursing home portion of the building moved, and 137 resident rooms in the assisted living portion of the building remain. Pine Haven will be conducting some renovations at the Giddings Avenue campus over the next several months.
Some of the renovations include creating a new entryway and lobby; moving the administrative offices upstairs into what was the nursing home; constructing a new shipping/receiving dock; and transforming the former nursing home dining room into a wellness center for residents.
With residents moved into their new home, a dedication ceremony and autumn festival will be held at the Haven Drive campus on Sept. 12 from 1:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. The public event will include a brat fry and craft and bake sale with proceeds benefitting the residents of Pine Haven. In addition, visitors can tour the public areas of the campus.
Ground broke on the expansion in April 2014 as a result of the need to renovate Pine Haven’s existing nursing home.
The original Pine Haven Christian home opened in 1950 as a three-story building. In 1957, the first wing of a new nursing home was built on Giddings Avenue, just south of the original home, with all resident rooms on the main floor. Additional wings were added in 1968 and 1973, and renovations to the home occurred in 1983. In a review of all options for improvement, it was demonstrated that building a new structure would be more cost-efficient than renovation of the existing home.
