JAA announces plans for urban senior village at former Charles Morris site
“We will be seen and recognized as a premier provider of services,” she said.
The Jewish Association on Aging announced plans to create a new urban senior village at its Brown Hills Road campus.
Construction will begin soon on the first phase of the renovations that will transform the former Charles Morris Nursing and Rehabilitation Center into 30 personal care residences and add new executive offices, a renovated kitchen and cosmetic updates to the AHAVA Memory Care Residence, according to JAA Board Chair Lou Plung.
Work is projected to be completed in late 2025.
A second phase will create an independent living facility, consisting of approximately 60 units, on the site of the former Residence at Weinberg Village.
Once the new urban senior village is finished, the campus — including The New Riverview — will boast 311 living units. Its accommodations and services will encompass independent living, personal care, memory care and wraparound services such as home health, hospice, Mollie’s Meals, physical therapy and care navigation.
Residents, Plung said, will be able to move through the system as their needs and level of care change.
Once the construction is finished, he said, an evaluation process will begin to determine what, if any, additional amenities should be added.
“What we hope to do is step back and say, ‘OK, what more can we put on the campus that will benefit the entire campus, that everyone is going to want to use and partake of? Is that some kind of JCC? Is it a medical building? Is it shopping?’” he said.
The opportunities are plentiful, Plung said, and will present themselves once the main campus is completed.
“Our focus right now is getting the infrastructure built, getting the residents on campus and then getting it to become a community,” he said.
JAA is partnering with Continental Real Estate but will retain ownership of the property and buildings.
Continental is a nationwide developer and builder of commercial real estate projects based in Ohio. It has a large portfolio in Pittsburgh, including developments at The Waterfront, the North Shore and the Galleria of Mt. Lebanon, as well as senior communities in three states, including Apple Blossom in Moon Township, Pennsylvania.
And while the JAA will own and manage the property, Plung said Continental will “bring their knowledge on apartment leasing, apartment living and independent living.”
The new campus configuration will also allow the JAA to expand its home health services, Sivitz Hospice & Palliative Care and Molly’s Meals.
“We firmly believe the future of services to our seniors is both residential and at home,” Plung said.
JAA President and CEO Mary Anne Foley agreed.
“Those services that are without walls have a potential to really grow and support this community in a way that we’ve not always been able to support,” she said.
As an example, she said the organization’s home health program is something they could “triplicate” once the construction is complete.
“We will be seen and recognized as a premier provider of services,” she said.
While the new campus will be open to everyone, Plung said it will retain its Jewish character, something he noted that is important to the JAA board.
“There will be a synagogue as part of this new building,” he said. “It will be infused with Yiddishkeit. What Mary Anne and her team were most concerned about were the values that the JAA brings to the table.”
Plung and Foley said that the new development is proof of the organization’s commitment to the community.
“This is a rebirth, a transformation,” Plung said. “This is JAA 3.0, and we’re excited to announce it.”
The JAA’s roots go back more than 100 years, to 1906, when the Jewish Home for the Aged was housed in a former mansion in the Hill District, according to the Rauh Jewish Archives. By 1910, the building was overcrowded and an annex was built to accommodate 40 additional residents. In 1933, the home moved to its new building on Brown’s Hill Road.
The facility at Brown’s Hill Road eventually included the Charles Morris Nursing and Rehabilitation Center and The Residence at Weinberg Village, a personal care facility. The JAA closed Charles Morris in January 2021, the result of the convergence of three factors: a significant gap between Medicaid funding and the cost of caring for Medicaid clients; a trend toward at-home care for the elderly; and the financial impact of the pandemic, including a marked decrease in short-term rehabilitation patients due to the reduction of elective surgeries. The JAA closed Weinberg Village at the end of 2022.
The new campus, Plung noted, honors the past — and the organization’s mission to provide care for the elderly — but also looks to the future.
“We realize the future is different,” he said. “The needs of the future are different. We’re really excited about this.”
That future, Foley said, is responding to the needs of today.
“We are evolving into this new village because that’s what the community and the seniors want today,” she said. “The legacy programs that are no longer in existence served a purpose, but that purpose is different than today. We have to continue to evolve and change as the needs of the community are evolving and changing.”
The total cost of the project is estimated to be $50 million. PJC
David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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