If you’ve been around the Niverville Heritage Centre recently, it’s hard to miss the construction happening on the southeast corner of the campus. This new $14-million facility is the Heritage Life Retirement Living complex and it’s the last piece of a dream that started over 15 years ago.
Steven Neufeld, Chief Executive Officer of the Heritage Centre and the Executive Director of the Personal Care Home, explains how the Heritage Centre campus came to be.
“I served on Town Council between 2000–2004, and we were facing the reality that the aging community was declining,” says Neufeld.
Essentially, without basic support services, seniors were leaving.
“The idea that we had was to create what we had termed ‘aging in place,’” Neufeld explains. “‘Aging in place’ means you have independent living, assisted living, supported living, and personal care home options.”
The dream was to build an intergenerational facility—a gathering place for the entire community—and create various levels of living options for people 55-plus and for those requiring assisted living. The first priority was to build the Primary Health Care Centre (PHCC).
In 2004, the Town of Niverville purchased the existing banquet facility on the Heritage Centre site from a private owner and added the PHCC and commercial space. In 2005, Niverville Heritage Holdings Inc. (NHHI), a not-for-profit corporation established by the Town of Niverville, began operating as an “arm’s length” entity to own, develop, and manage assets within the Town of Niverville and region. The NHHI opened the Niverville Credit Union Manor and accompanying atrium in May 2007.
In 2009, NHHI purchased the St. Adolphe Personal Care Home and lobbied Manitoba Health to rebuild it. Due to periodic flooding, it couldn’t be rebuilt in St. Adolphe, so the facility was built at the Heritage Centre campus.
The Heritage Life Personal Care Home opened in 2013. The $13.8-million, 80-bed facility was the country’s first special-care unit tailored for aggressive Alzheimer’s and dementia patients.
With 3 levels of the “aging in place” continuum established, it was time to tackle the independent living component, which brings us to the current construction.
The Heritage Life Retirement Living project, being built by Von Ast Construction, will be a 4-storey, 46-suite life lease residence that will also include 2 hotel rooms available to the general public.
Included among the amenities: a variety of suite sizes, heated underground parking, large storage lockers, balconies, and a variety of à la carte services such as housekeeping, laundry, and food services.
In addition, the new life lease project will house the new Primary Care Access Centre (PCAC). Located on the main level, the goal of the new PCAC is to create a single-access point for health care services. The long-term plan is to move towards 24-hour access, 7 days a week.
“We don’t ever look at this just for Niverville,” Neufeld says. “We look to our friends and neighbours from Hanover, Ritchot, and Taché that will also benefit from this.”
The services located in the current PHCC will be relocated to the new building. Services will include access to primary care clinicians, such as physicians, nurse practitioners, or physician assistants, as well as access to nurses, lab services, a chronic disease team, public health, Family First program, and mental health services. The vacant space at the current PHCC will be used to create more services for families.
“Now when you look at the demographics, the percentage of seniors 65-plus is in the healthy range,” Neufeld says. “The community responded to that need and we’ve seen that change happen.”
The expected completion date of the Heritage Life Retirement Living residence is February 1, 2017.
