Architectural rendering of new skilled nursing facility planned for West Peoria.  Image courtesy of Jenny Fulton, Director of Strategic Communications for Peoria County.

WEST PEORIA — Since 1848, Peoria County has owned and operated a skilled care nursing home that serves county residents.
The County’s newest skilled care nursing home has been under construction since September of 2011 and is now starting to take shape.

During a Topping Out ceremony on February 10, 2012, the final steel beam of the $45 million, 151,000 square-foot facility was installed.
“The last steel beam was placed on the structure and now they’ll be enclosing the structure and then starting the mechanical work,” said Director of Strategic Communications for Peoria County, Jenny Fulton.
The new facility, 2223 W Heading Ave., West Peoria, is being built on a 13-acre site that was the former location of the St. Joseph’s Nursing Home. The new facility is expected to open in the spring of 2013.
When it opens, the new facility will replace the Bel-Wood Nursing Home, 6701 W. Plank Rd., Peoria, that Peoria County opened in 1964.
“The Bel-Wood Nursing Home facility right now is deteriorating to the point where it’s more cost effective to build a new home than renovate the existing home, so the County decided to build this new facility to replace the one that we own now,” said Fulton.
Peoria County administrators have not yet determined what it will do with the Bel-Wood Nursing Home facility when it closes.
“The County hasn’t really decided what’s going to happen to the old facility,” said Fulton.
The new facility will house 214 residents, including 80 Alzheimer’s patients.
“We care for dementia patients (at Bel-Wood Nursing Home),” said Fulton. “We don’t have the secured floors that are required for caring for Alzheimer’s patients. We will have the ability to care for Alzheimer’s patients (at the new facility).”
Unlike the Bel-Wood Nursing Home facility, the new facility will be able to provide outpatient rehab services.
“We currently provide rehabilitation services to the residents that live at Bel-Wood Nursing Home,” said Fulton. “We will be providing rehabilitation services at the new facility and not only to the residents that live in the nursing home, but also outpatient rehabilitation services to people who are referred for those services from their doctors, so they don’t have to live in the home.
“We do our rehab at the current facility, but a firm comes in and does that. When we build a new facility, we will actually be providing those services.”
The new facility will be the first senior care facility in the state to be Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) silver certified.
“It’s going to be very energy efficient,” said Fulton.
The rooms in the new facility will be larger and provide more privacy for patients than those at Bel-Wood Nursing Home. Individual wings and floors for short-term care, long-term care and Alzheimer’s care will have individual dining rooms, so residents don’t have to travel as far at mealtimes, as they do at the Bel-Wood facility.
The central part of the new facility will include a laundry area, dietary and physical therapy services area, activities area and a chapel.
In 2003, Peoria County residents voted in favor of the Bel-Wood Nursing Home referendum that increased the county property tax rate ceiling from 2.5 cents to 6.0 cents, generating additional property tax funds that were used to finance the construction of a new facility.
Peoria County administrators are expected to name the new facility in June of this year.
“We don’t have a name for it,” said Fulton. “We’re probably going to have a name for it in June.”