Gilmore Lodge Redevelopment
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About the project

Gilmore Lodge long-term care home is being redeveloped on a 4.87-hectare lot at 60 King St. in Fort Erie.

The new Gilmore Lodge redevelopment project will be a three-storey, non-combustible structure that includes 160 long-term care home beds and a Gilmore Community Hub.

Our project partners include Walsh Canada and MMMC Architects.

Features

The new Gilmore Lodge Long-Term Care Home will have a cozy, home-like feeling. Each resident home area is subdivided into two 16-bed wings, featuring shorter hallways with sitting areas located at the end of each corridor. The design includes features that improve infection control measures and enhances the resident and user experience.

The new Gilmore Lodge long-term care home and Gilmore Community Hub is being developed to facilitate the integration of services for residents, seniors, their families and the community. The Gilmore Community Hub will be home to our Community Services Adult Day Programs, Healthy Safe and Strong Falls Prevention Exercise Programs, Seniors Outreach Programs, Respite Companion Support Programs and community partner space.

The basement level consists of the main commercial kitchen and laundry, shipping and receiving, staff room, locker rooms, facilities maintenance offices and storage areas.

The long-term care home ground floor includes a single, 32-bed resident home area, celebration boardroom, administration offices, volunteer area, café and store, chapel, library, great room, café seating, rehab gym, technology room and accessible outdoor spaces.

The Gilmore Community Hub features an Adult Day Program area, with small and large programming areas, consultation room, exercise room, washrooms and shower facilities, program kitchen and dining, office and meeting spaces, a staff lounge area, staff fitness, café seating, conference room and courtyard. The café and hair salon spaces were designed to offer services to both long-term care residents and seniors from the surrounding community.

The project will be pursuing WELL Silver certification under the WELL Building Standard. The WELL Building Standard supports the health and well-being of residents and staff who will be living and working in the new facilities, together with guests, families and volunteers who visit and use the amenities. The WELL Building Standard is premised on a holistic approach and is focused on enhancing people's health and well-being through the built environment.

Project timeline

We will provide expected building completion and resident move-in dates once determined with the construction teams.

November 2021 - ongoing
Construction starts

December 5, 2024 - Completed
Public open house

December 18, 2024 - Completed
Residents move in

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Contact

Mislav Koren
Senior Project Manager

Tyler McClellan
Manager, Long-Term Care Facilities

Dana Greves
Project Assistant

Email the long-term care redevelopment team

Image Gallery

The three-storey Gilmore Lodge Long-Term Care Home will be situated close to Albany Street, providing sight lines to Lake Erie. The exterior façade is made up of stone, masonry and aluminum composite metal panels providing a durable, low-maintenance building envelope. Transparency and natural light is brought into the building through a combination of a curtain wall and punched windows.

Drop curbs provide fully accessible approach to building from any area of the parking lot. Canopy structure provides protection from elements and a well-lit approach to building entrance. A radiant snow melting system has been incorporated into the sidewalk at the front entrance to provide dry, safe access for residents, staff and visitors.

There are two large, secure courtyards at ground level, accessible from several programming spaces available to residents. The courtyards feature hard, flat surfaces in looped configurations with shade structures and seating areas incorporated into the design to provide residents with rest areas and protection from the elements.

Resident home area corridors are designed as short hallways with handrails on both sides to minimize the distance residents need to travel to access amenities within the home area. Individual memory boxes outside each resident room provide personalized space and visual cues for residents. Personal protective equipment cabinets have been discretely incorporated outside of each resident room, providing convenient access for staff and optimizing infection control. Seating areas at the end of each corridor provide a destination for residents and rest area if required and have a clear line of sight from staff Care Stations.

Each resident bedroom is single occupancy to provide privacy for residents and assist with infection control. A ceiling lift system provided in each room allows for convenient and safe resident transfers (for staff and residents). Each resident room has independent heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) units which provide residents with optimal temperature control and confine air circulation to within the room, reducing the potential spread of air borne contaminants. Lighting controls integrated into the residents suites support resident wellbeing by working the natural human circadian rhythm. Residents will also have ability to adjust lighting levels to personal preference. Combination sheers and black-out blinds provide residents with control over natural light levels in the room.

Private resident bedrooms will have an adjoining private ensuite washroom. Semi-private rooms have private bedrooms and a shared ensuite washroom with two vanities and sinks providing residents with personal storage space and to avoid cross contamination. The ceiling lift system extends seamlessly from bedroom to washroom, providing for convenient and safe resident transfers (for staff and residents).

Residents, families and visitors will have access to a large multi-use area on the ground floor of the home. The area has been purposely designed to provide a variety of environments through the use of decor, equipment and furniture to encourage casual use by both residents and their families as well as to facilitate scaled programs and events.

Partition doors between the Library and Chapel can be kept closed for private devotions or opened to provide a large, welcoming space for reading, visiting with family, or to provide additional seating during special events taking place in the nearby Great Room.

The dining rooms are located within the central hub of the resident home area. There are two dining rooms per resident home area, each accommodating 16 residents, and are serviced from a centrally located home kitchen. Smaller dining rooms provide residents with a home-like setting to experience pleasurable dining. Beyond their function during meal services, the dining rooms add to the domestic character of the home area and serve as a catalyst for social activities that relate to food and home.

The Great Room is an open concept room that allows for optimal flexibility in room configuration to meet varying program interests of participants, while adjacent small programming spaces and quiet rooms tailor to very specific interests and needs of the participant group. Participants will move to the exercise and program kitchen areas for functional programming needs while simultaneously creating the space for movement and mobility, which are essential to continued independent living.

The primary function of the Program Kitchen / Dining room will support the Adult Day Program meal service and food-related cooking / baking activity programs. Additionally, the functional space is designed with teaching in mind, supporting targeted instructional opportunities, skill development, and / or social / educational learning opportunities.

Design elements create a community flex space that supports regularly scheduled Healthy, Safe, and Strong exercise classes for seniors in addition to an informal walking track for use by all. The ability to project the classes to alternate rooms allows others to benefit from the class. Beyond scheduled classes, the space can be transformed into community meeting space with flexible furnishings and built in TV, IT connectivity, and audio.