Mamaroneck nursing home to go ‘green’

The Sarah Neuman Center, a 300-bed nursing home complex in Mamaroneck owned and operated by Jewish Home Lifecare, is going green.

Jewish Home Lifecare, a New York City-based elder care provider that also operates nursing homes in the Bronx and Manhattan, began renovations to the Sarah Neuman Center earlier in August as it aims to model itself after The Green House Project initiative.

The initiative, which ironically has no relationship to the sustainable building movement, aims to foster smaller, more intimate communities for nursing home residents.

The concept of a noninstitutional model for nursing homes has taken root across the country, with so-called green houses in operation in 32 states, according to The Green House Project.

As it brings its facilities up to the green house standard, Jewish Home Lifecare is planning large-scale renovations to its Mamaroneck facility, including the construction of a new, two-story green house.

“The project at Sarah Neuman is to redefine the way that we provide elder care,” said Bruce Nathanson, senior vice president of communication for Jewish Home Lifecare. “The advantage of this is we create a new environment that is basically a home for our elders.”

The green house development at Sarah Neuman will accommodate 12 residents on each floor, and will include private rooms for each resident, a large kitchen and community dining area, and even fireplaces, Nathanson said.

He said construction of the green house is expected to begin in mid-2014, and should last 15 months. It will be funded primarily through philanthropy, with fundraising efforts already well underway, Nathanson said.

Renovations to the Pavilion wing of the Sarah Neuman Center have already begun, and should be completed by early 2016, Nathanson said.

As part of the renovation, the center”™s administrators want the setting inside the main nursing home to resemble the future green house development as much as possible.

The primary differences will be that some residents will share rooms in the main facility, and that the public spaces will be slightly smaller there, Nathanson said.

“We”™re creating households there that are as similar as possible to the green house model,” he said.

There will be no additional cost to residents living in the green house versus those living in the main facility, and the cost of caring for residents in both areas is expected to remain roughly the same.

Elders residing in green house-modeled nursing homes have an improved quality of life and receive better care when compared to patients at typical nursing homes, The Green House Project contends on its website.

Jewish Home Lifecare is also planning to construct a new facility in Manhattan, which will be called the Living Center of Manhattan. The project will mark the first time the green house model is implemented in a high-density urban setting, according to Jewish Home Lifecare.

The company expects to break ground on the Living Center in 2014, with construction expected to last three years.

The center will be built on 97th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues, and follows years of efforts to replace the company”™s current facility on West 106th Street with a more modern nursing home.