News Release

SUGAR CREEK STATION BUILDING INDEPENDENT LIVING FACILITY
Project will include apartments, other facilities for people who can live on their own

Jan. 25, 2006 — Sugar Creek Station is converting a former residential unit into independent living apartments for older individuals who can live on their own.
The new facility – the first of its kind in the Venango County area – is being developed with a grant from the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania (CCAP) and the state Department of Public Welfare (DPW), which are offering the funds to help skilled nursing centers convert excess beds into new facilities. CCAP and DPW developed the program several years ago in response to a statewide oversupply of nursing home beds.

This is the same grant program that Sugar Creek Station used in 2001 to expand and renovate its physical, occupational and speech therapy unit.

The independent living apartment (ILA) project will allow UPMC Northwest’s skilled nursing and rehabilitation center to use some unoccupied space while also creating a unique housing option for some members of the community, says Sugar Creek Station administrator Nancy Pastorius. Among the prospective occupants of the apartments: individuals whose spouses are Sugar Creek Station residents, people who live alone and wish to obtain meals, light housekeeping or other services the new unit will offer, and others who want a comfortable, safe place to live on their own.

The apartments’ residents “pretty much will be on their own, but we will make some services like these available to them because we’re already providing them in the nursing home,” Ms. Pastorius says.

The ILA will be in Sugar Creek Station’s former 28-bed 700 hallway, which is being rebuilt with five single and two double apartments. Each apartment will include its own kitchenette, living room, bedroom and bathroom, and there will be several central facilities for residents’ use including a family gathering room, dining/activity room, laundry room, storage room and landscaped patio.

Every apartment will include an important personal safety and security feature: a call system that will enable residents to summon help around the clock from a nurse or other Sugar Creek Station staff member in the event of an emergency. “This will be one of the nicest benefits of the new unit, knowing that someone is right there 24 hours a day,” Ms. Pastorius says.

The project also includes construction of a small lobby at the end of the 700 hallway, a driveway off Causeway Drive, and a separate parking lot for the new unit.

Residents of the new apartments will have the option to buy meals and light housekeeping services, Ms. Pastorius says.

Whalen Contracting of Franklin is building the apartments. Construction is nearing the halfway mark, and the project is on target for completion in the spring.

Prospective occupants can learn more about the apartments by calling Sugar Creek Station at 814-437-0100.