Corewell Health patients, staff ‘really happy’ in new rehab & nursing center

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Corewell Health patients in need of long-term care have spent the past two months settling into their new home in Grand Rapids.

After more than a year and a half of construction, the health provider cut the ribbon on a new rehabilitation and nursing center on Cedar Street NE at Fuller Avenue on May 7. The facility replaced the continuing care facility only a couple blocks south on Fuller. Residents moved from the old center to the new one on May 21.

“When I first moved to this building, I fell in love with this building,” Tom Templin, a resident of the new facility on Cedar, said. “This building is like a country club and that’s why I love it so much because long, spacious hallways, a lot of windows, a ton of natural light.”

The facility can accommodate 120 long-term residents who require skilled nursing care services. An additional five rooms are dedicated to acute care. There is also a beauty salon, art studio, on-site dialysis center and 2,000-square-foot therapy gym.

The facility cost $46.8 million, with $34 million coming from Corewell and $12.6 million in philanthropy.

“I’m extremely thankful to be here,” Templin said. “It’s quite different from a regular hospital.”

Corewell staff said that’s intentional. They put a focus on making sure residents feel like the center is a place they can call home.

“A lot of it is terminology,” Amy Sells, the facility’s administrator and director, said. “We’re in a big activity room here is what we might have called (it) before. Now we kind of call it the living room or the dining room, so some terminology changes. We also designed the facility with those things in mind, so we needed to put as much space in those living room areas or their rooms as we could. And that’s really been the main focus of the design of this facility, is how are the residents going to enjoy it?”

“I like to go up and down the hallways in my wheelchair,” Templin said.

It’s easier for him to do so, too, since all living spaces are on one level, with easy access to the outdoors, including several courtyards.

“It’s incredible, really. We’ve seen a lot of (the patients) out of the rooms more often and through the hallways and just connecting with other residents more than they had in the past,” Sells said. “They get to enjoy these nice big beautiful open areas, so everybody is really happy in the new space.”

The project is a realized dream more than a decade in the making and one that Sells said wouldn’t have been possible without the collaboration of people who truly care.

“I think this is the passion of everybody who works here. You know, the heart and the services were there. We’re just really excited to put this environment now to these residents as well as a service to them so they can really enjoy it,” Sells said.

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