By Howard Packowitz
BLOOMINGTON – A more than seven-year expansion, considered one of the largest ever local construction projects, is underway at Bloomington’s Westminster Village senior care retirement community.
Leaders of the not-for-profit continuing care senior center broke ground Thursday for the initial phase of the $70 million project.
First up is the addition of two floors at Westminster’s skilled nursing facility, the Martin Health Center, at a cost of $33 million. Almost all the rooms there will be private when the initial phase is done in the summer of 2019. Martin Health Center now has 76 semi-private rooms and only two that are private. When completed, there will be 80 private rooms and eight that are shared.
Next year at this time, Westminster will have a new welcoming center off of Mercer Ave., replacing the current main entrance on Lincoln St. President of Westminster’s governing board, Jay Reece, said he expects some trying times for the hundreds of Westminster residents and employees.
“There’s going to be noise, there’s going to be dust, we’re going to have new traffic patterns and there’s going to be some frustrations along the way,” Reece told those attending the groundbreaking ceremony. “But I know that you and we can handle this.”
In later phases, Westminster plans expansion of its assisted and independent living facilities, which is expected to help reduce a waiting list of future residents. More than 300 are currently on the waiting list.
Howard Packowitz can be reached at [email protected].
