Gastonia senior living community planning $54 million expansion

A senior living community in Gastonia is planning a multi-million dollar expansion that will spruce up the existing facilities and add apartments and cottages to the campus.

Covenant Village, a multi-level senior care community that offers independent living, assisted living and memory care, hopes to break ground on the massive expansion project this summer, said Covenant Village CEO Dale Melton.

The plan for the expansion includes both new builds and the renovation of existing facilities, Melton said.

The plan, the first master plan the facility has had since 2002, is "as much about current residents as it is about future residents," he added.

Covenant Village currently consists of 42 duplex cottages. A key component of the master plan is to update the exterior of the cottages, which should be finished in the next month, Melton said. Workers will replace windows and siding, repaint the cottages, and even power wash the driveways and sidewalks, "a total external refresh," Melton said.

The community also plans to update its dining services, creating an open kitchen that will allow residents to see what's happening as their food is being prepared.

"One of the nice restaurants downtown, Webb Custom Kitchen, kind of has that open kitchen concept, so you can look in and see all that's going on," Melton said.

The larger addition to the community will be Stonecrest Villa, a total of 21 new apartments.

"But think of it as a really small apartment building where you have in our case, a floor and a half of parking under (the) building and then four floors of residences above that," Melton said.

There are also plans to construct 14 new single-family cottages, creating a "pocket neighborhood" that will wrap around a green space.

"And so the concept is that you're building around this greenspace, and so that each of the cottages, all of the primary living spaces are facing that green space, so your kitchen, dining room, living room, primary bedroom are facing towards the green space, and the garage, extra bedroom, would be more towards the front yard, the road that you would access," Melton said.

The centerpiece of the master plan is a covered outdoor pavilion for activities like cornhole and shuffleboard, Melton said.

"What's becoming kind of a centerpiece of the master plan is an outdoor pavilion. COVID, among many things that it did to us, but it slapped us in the face to make us realize we don't have a lot of outdoor space for residents," he said. "We have some wonderful trails and just a beautiful place to walk, but not a lot of covered areas for resident activities."

The total cost for the entire project will be around $54 million. A gift of $1.25 million from a donor will fund the pavilion. The project is expected to take at least 18 months.

This article originally appeared on The Gaston Gazette: Covenant Village in Gastonia, NC plans multi-million-expansion