Glen Haven Village Proponents Encouraged By Support

With nearly 80 percent of the capital campaign goal reached, proponents of the proposed Glen Haven Village skilled nursing center are increasingly optimistic the $3.2 million project will become a reality.

“This project is going to happen,” Glen Haven Village proponent and former Glen Haven board member Phil Warren said Saturday as he talked about the project that would turn seven renovated cottages on the campus of the Glenwood Resource Center into a skilled-care, rehabilitation and memory support nursing facility that would replace the 52-year-old Glen Haven nursing home at 302 Sixth St.

As of late last week, nearly $900,000 had been donated or pledged toward the project, including a $500,000 matching gift from the Rod Rhoden Foundation. Rhoden, a 1962 graduate of Glenwood Community High School, left Glenwood at the age of 18 and later started a successful automobile business. His firm, Motors Management, has four dealerships in Nebraska. A fifth dealership, Rhoden Auto Center of Council Bluffs, was sold earlier this year.

Last spring, Rhoden announced his foundation would match up to $500,000 in donations given toward the Glen Haven Village project, noting he is well aware of  the need for the community to replace the outdated Glen Haven nursing home which opened in 1964.

“I realized there wasn’t a lot of alternatives in Glenwood for my mother,” Rhoden said. “My mother was never there (Glen Haven) but because of her condition, I was aware of the situation with the facility.”

Each Glen Haven Village cottage would accommodate 10-12 residents. There will be one specifically for memory care / Alzheimer’s residents and another unit that can accommodate  residents needing short-term rehabilitation. The cottages will have single-oocupancy rooms with a private bathroom.

The “village” or “green” concept will allow residents to receive required care while living in a non-institutionalized setting.

The GRC will provide dietary, laundry, and maintenance services and residents will have access to the campus chapel and hydro-therapy pool on the campus.
Although the deadline for securing the matching funds was initially set at Oct. 1, Rhoden said last week he is agreeable to pushing the deadline back to Dec. 31.
“I’m encouraged,” Rhoden said during a telephone interview Friday. “They’re continuing to get some on-going pledges and donations – a little bit more each week. I’m OK with  going until the end of the year because I understand this time of the year in an ag-related community, it can be hard to pin some guys down.

“My message (to Glenwood) is that the challenge is still on.”

Warren spent homecoming weekend pitching the Glen Haven Village proposal to Glenwood alumni in town for class reunions and homecoming festivities, even offering tours of the one of the cottages that will be part of the project.

“If you can’t be in your own home, it’s as close as you’ll get,” Warren said during tour Saturday morning. “We’re going to have a 1-to-6 ratio of residents to staff.

That’s the best ratio of any nursing home in the state.”

Warren said he’s confident the extra three months will be enough time to secure the remaining capital campaign funds needed to match Rhoden’s $500,000.
In addition to the donations, the Glen Haven Board of Directors plans to secure the remaining dollars needed with a USDA Rural Development loan. Warren noted terms of the lease agreement for the cottages with the state of Iowa are still being finalized.

 

The Opinion-Tribune

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