Gregg Maedo + Associates is happy to announce the groundbreaking of a new Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) in Merced, CA. The “Craftsman Style” SNF will have 73 resident rooms with private baths, with a portion of these rooms designed in such a way to be used as semi-private rooms, for a maximum of 120 beds. We pride ourselves on being an architectural firm that is noted for skilled nursing designs that “works” aesthetically, functionally, financially and can be built economically. We take great pride in designing responsibly, and thus, we are very happy another building is in construction.
The layout is based on the GM+A design philosophy that was used to successfully design our Murrieta Skilled Nursing Facility, which opened in the late 90’s. As part of our core principles, we strive conscientiously to improve – beginning with our attention to details. We are unique to be able to incorporate elements learned thru our work at Disneyland, and the operational information learned over the years since the opening of Murrieta.
With any project, the client is the leader and the most important member of the team. They set forth the path and create the opportunities for us to follow. For Merced, we are fortunate to have Anberry Rehabilitation Hospital as our leader, and a re-occurring theme throughout the process: “Don’t step over dollars to pick up pennies.”
They understood that the right design takes time and is in the details, wanting a facility that will be state of the art in its design elements and be financially efficient. For the A&E team, our goal was to design in such a way to obtain greater savings in the construction cost, but at a minimum cover the increased efforts in design. Our collaboration with OSHPD, the governing agency, also enhanced our design resulting in substantial cost savings in construction. We believe Merced will be a very successful project in all ways, but our true measure of success is when our design can withstand the ever increasing challenge to maintain financial sustainability.
It is very gratifying to see another SNF being built. I remember 30 years ago, when the baby boomers were young and active and tennis was popular – the thought of aging was not even close to being on their radar. It was difficult to get city planners to approve building a nursing home in their cities. However, as the baby boomers aged; transitioning from the bar scene to Starbucks, going from playing tennis to golf, and starting to look up in the sky to see the position of the sun as they contemplated their own mortality, awareness of skilled nursing became more prevalent and more important.
Now, as the baby boomers march into retirement and beyond, the sentiment and need to replace the existing aging SNFs has swung the pendulum in a positive way. It seems as though everyone now understands the need to build more SNFs. For Architects, being able to design a skilled nursing facility is not enough. Being able to design a state of the art skilled nursing facility with economic responsibility to thrive is The Challenge.
As our Merced SNF begins construction, our mission will be to learn from this project so we can continue to stay ahead of the curve, design SNFs that “work” in all ways and get them built.
