Liberty Hospital has started to develop plans for a $60 million community on the hospital’s campus that will combine residential facilities for recovering patients and a healthy living center where patients can exercise and take classes on how to stay well. The hospital has already broken ground for a new physical rehabilitation and sports medicine center slated to open this summer.
Restaurants, shops, and offices will also be added. Liberty Hospital hopes to break ground on the community late this year or early next year and have it finished in the first half of 2016.
The new 65,000-square-foot complex, which will occupy about 12 to 15 acres, is designed to provide places to stay for patients who have been discharged from the hospital but aren’t ready to return home. They may include patients who don’t have family nearby to help them at home, or who need rehabilitation or frequent follow-up visits to the doctor.
The community residences will be designed and managed by Action Pact, a Manhattan, Kan., company that specializes in group housing for the elderly that is less institutional than traditional nursing homes. Its “household model” will have 14 to 20 residents in a building with a communal kitchen and living and dining rooms.
