Sentara to construct new skilled nursing facility in Chesapeake

The senior services division of Norfolk-based Sentara Healthcare plans to replace its skilled nursing facility on a 11-acre campus in Chesapeake.

The $16.9 million project will require relocation of more than 60 residents in an assisted-living village on the Oak Grove Road site, which will be demolished to make room for the new nursing center.

Sentara said it is providing assisted-living residents and their families with information about other facilities in the region, with a target of relocating them within 90 days.

About 30 employees affected by the assisted-living closure will be transferred to other Sentara facilities with no anticipated job losses, the company said.  

“Our facilities in Chesapeake are more than 45 years old,” Bruce Robertson, president of Sentara Life Care, said in a statement. “Our Chesapeake nursing center earns high marks for quality measures, but we want to provide our residents with a modern facility, and we are excited to launch this project.”

Sentara Life Care  said rooms in the new skilled nursing center will offer more square footage and greater privacy for residents.
The new building also will include a rehabilitation wing with a gymnasium, a memory unit for residents with dementia and a large new kitchen. The new nursing center building will be more than a third larger than the current one. 

After the skilled nursing move is complete in early 2016, community need and available funding will determine when the assisted-living village will be rebuilt, the company said.

The draft site plan also includes the potential for a PACE facility.  PACE is the federally-supported Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly. PACE provides day services and e health care to those who qualify for a nursing home but choose to live in the community. Sentara Life Care currently operates PACE sites in Virginia Beach and Portsmouth.