Strafford County lawmakers reject $150 million bond to fund new nursing home. What's next?

DOVER − Strafford County state legislators have voted down a county commission-led initiative to issue a $150 million bond that would fund the construction of a new nursing home in Dover to replace the aging Riverside Rest Home.

The county delegation vote on Monday night ended in a 16-16 tie, falling short of the two-thirds approval needed from the body to issue the sizable bond proposed by the commission. The project proposal involves building a new 215-bed nursing home facility on County Farm Road in Dover, not far from where Monday’s vote occurred, and eventually transforming the existing Riverside Rest Home into a transitional shelter modeled off Cross Roads House in Portsmouth.

Following the unsuccessful vote to issue the bond, county delegation members passed a motion for the issuance of a $6.2 million bond calling for the project architect, Concord-based firm Warrenstreet, to complete a full design of the facility in the next two years, according to county commission chairperson George Maglaras.

In doing so, elected officials from Strafford County in the next legislative session will be given the opportunity in the future to agree to fund the potential project.

“It’s a great compromise and it moves us forward on getting a new nursing home, which is sorely needed,” he said.  “Everybody in the room agreed it was sorely needed, there were just questions about the costs.”

The idea was first presented to the legislative delegation earlier this year, then elected officials approved funding for an architect to be hired.

Warrenstreet co-owner and principal planner, Jonathan Halle, spoke to county delegation members on Monday evening prior to the votes.

The nursing home, initially slated to span 330,000 square feet, was formerly priced at $170 million, though the proposal was scaled down to 231,000 square feet and dropped to a price of $139.4 million, according to Halle.

Costs from the original proposal were reduced by several factors, though mainly by a roughly $21.6 million decrease that came from eliminating 80,000 square feet of unfinished basement space from the design. The unfinished space could have been used for future expansion, per project documents.

The reduced price of the proposal was achieved additionally by reducing the property’s loop road from a two-way public street to a one-way fire access lane, as well as by decreasing the construction schedule by five months, based on the reduced size of the building.

The cost estimates were formed with elevated prices in mind, and Halle noted that the figures were planned in accordance with a 10% inflation rate and under the assumption that the project won’t go out to bid for 18 to 24 months.

“What’s in play is the quality of the building or the size of the building, and that’s what we’ve done here,” said Halle. “We’ve eliminated some square footage and we brought the number down.”

Strafford County Administrator Ray Bauer passionately stated that a driving force in reducing the size and price of the proposed facility is because, at $170 million, the nursing home didn’t have the votes necessary for approval.

“We have to think about our residents,” he implored. “We have to think about the residents that we have now and that we’ll have in the future.”

Registered nurse Brianna Haskins-Belanger has worked at the Riverside Rest Home since 2009. The rest home employee told county legislators that the existing building, built in 1978, is riddled with asbestos, contains shared bedrooms and bathrooms, has air exchange deficiencies and a lack of air conditioning.

“If it’s not built today, the cost would be exponentially more to expand in the future. We have a building that isn’t able to meet today’s needs,” she said.

Dover resident Chuck Rhoades stated that the county clearly showed its support for the proposal when it re-elected its three Strafford County commissioners last month, a trio who shepherded the project forward.

“Engage in a shared vision for what’s best for our county,” he told the elected officials.

Cynthia Walter, a fellow Dover resident, voiced her support for the project, calling it the “economically wise thing to do, as well as the humane thing to do.”

“We know that good nursing homes save money because poorly designed nursing homes increase costly health effects on the patients as well as the staff, and those can cost huge amounts. So it’s better to design the most efficient and health-providing environment you can,” she said.

Some members of the county delegation and the general public spoke in opposition to the project, including Dover City Councilor Fergus Cullen, one of three Republicans who ran to become a Strafford County commissioner in November, but lost.

Cullen remarked that the process of putting together the proposal has been rushed and came with very little input from the public.

“I do believe that we need a modern nursing home to serve our local Medicaid eligible population. I’m not convinced that the county necessarily needs to run it,” he said.

In the past, Cullen stated that options to privatize a new nursing home should be considered. Before legislators on Monday night, he also expressed unease about taking the existing Riverside Rest Home and converting it into a transitional shelter.

“I have major concerns that a facility like this will become a magnet for people in need of service in a way that might have side consequences that we don’t expect,” he said. “I have compassion and empathy for people who are homeless. But if you think the county has a homeless problem now, wait until we have a permanent facility.”

The motion to issue the $6.2 million bond to have Warrenstreet produce a facility design was passed on a 22-10 vote by county delegation members.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Strafford County rejects $150M for nursing home but OKs $6M for design