Old Ironwood site to include assisted living
Developers of Sterling Ridge, the major project going up at the former Ironwood Country Club location, have announced that they plan to break ground next spring on an 80-unit assisted living facility.
The $14.5 million facility will be operated by Heritage Management Services and include about 20 units in a designated memory care wing. It will be on the northeast corner of the site, near 126th and Pacific Streets, and should be completed in the fall of 2013.
Farhan Khan, CEO and co-founder of Omaha-based Heritage Management Services, said the facility will be similar to others the company operates in Nebraska and Iowa, including Heritage Pointe in Omaha, Fox Run in Council Bluffs and Heritage Ridge in Bellevue.
Final details for the 120,000-square-foot project are still being ironed out, but the facility may also include an independent living component. The memory care area will feature more specialized staff and design, including areas designed to keep residents active or to help keep them calm.
“People with dementia tend to wander, and this will allow them to wander in a safe environment,” Khan said.
The facility, which has not yet been named, will employ about 60 workers, ranging from food service and housekeeping staff to administrators and nurses.
Elsewhere on the 153-acre property, developers plan to build homes, condominiums, offices, restaurants, shops, a hotel and a tri-faith religious center.
Khan said those features make Sterling Ridge a particularly good spot for an assisted living facility.
“We want to make it really easy for the residents, once they are placed there, to have family come and interact with them,” he said. “If you work nearby or live nearby, that just makes it so much better.”
The property was used as a private golf course — first Highland Country Club and later Ironwood Country Club — from 1924 to 2009. Financial problems forced it to close that year, but it briefly reopened as a public course before Lockwood Development paid $9.98 million for it at a foreclosure auction in early 2010.
Crews completed demolition work on the former golf course clubhouse in July and have been putting in sewer lines and roads over the last couple of months.
Lockwood Development owner Chip James said work is expected to begin any day on the project’s first building, the headquarters of Millard Refrigerated Services. All of the infrastructure work is expected to be completed by March, and other buildings, including some retail space, should start going up over the next few months.
The first phase of development also includes 46 homes.
The entire project, which will cost between $200 million and $250 million, is expected to take five to 10 more years to build out.
