Replacing Blackfoot skilled nursing facility nears completion

Though the staff started training in the new Syringa Chalet Skilled Nursing Facility in late August, patients didn’t move in until the middle of September and the official opening wasn’t until the end of the month. 

Regardless, razing the 82-year old building that previously housed State Hospital South’s Syringa Chalet unit is only now in the last throes of completion, according to Michael Kinghorn, the new facility’s project manager at Layton Construction. “Demolition started three weeks ago,” Kinghorn told the Idaho Business Review on Nov. 5. “We’re finishing up now on the basement.”

Layton and the agencies representing the State of Idaho were all happy with the outcome. “It went very well for us,” Kinghorn commented on the progress of the two-year long process to replace the former structure with a new one. “The client, that is to say both the Idaho State Building Authority and State Hospital South, was wonderful to work with. The project stayed in budget and was very successful.”

A long lead time

The project was many years in the making, starting with the advocacy of Tracey Sessions, the director of State Hospital South for nine years. She retired in 2017 after 29 years in civil service with the State of Idaho, most of it with the Department of Health and Welfare, working to help those with mental illness.

Sessions recognized the need for a new skilled nursing facility at SHS. The old Syringa Chalet had multiple problems which could no longer be renovated away. 

The building had only community restrooms, which presented challenges for both elderly patients and staff. The structure had no in-house kitchen to provide meals, so food was carted from over 200 yards away across the hospital grounds. The ancient elevators of the three-story building were in bad shape. Both the wiring and plumbing were “critically outdated,” as Sessions told the Blackfoot Morning News in 2018. 

The Idaho Bureau of Facility Standards, which enforces Medicare and Medicaid standards in the state, officially expressed concern in its reports for the health of the residents due the aging infrastructure. Session made it one of her goals as SHS director to convince the Idaho’s spending-shy Legislature to fund replacement of the old facility, originally built in 1938 as a clinic and surgical unit.

Funding the new Syringa Chalet

Sessions succeeded in her quest. She was still working on special projects for SHS when the Legislature passed Concurrent Resolution 140 during its 2018 session. State Senator Steve Bair of Bingham County was the author of the legislation and Representative Neil Anderson, also of Bingham County, sponsored it in the House.

The resolution authorized the Idaho State Building Authority to issue $35 million in bonds in an arrangement with IDHW to fund the new facility. The legislation passed the Senate unanimously on March 6, 2018 and passed the House 53-15-2 on March 13.

Bonds for the new Syringa Chalet were issued in the fall of 2018. Layton Construction won the competitive bidding process to build the new structure, including providing the architectural work and interior design, permits, equipment, furniture and demolition of the old building once the patients were moved into the new structure. The new Syringa Chalet at SHS is a one-story 57,000-square-foot building located in the former courtyard space and parking lot next to the site of the old nursing facility.

“The nursing home serves as a safety net for the residents, many of whom can’t be treated in other nursing homes around the state and cannot return to their communities,” Jim Price, the director of SHS said in an earlier Idaho Business Review article on the project’s groundbreaking ceremony in May 2019. “The new facility will be safer and have more capacity as it also preserves a feeling of home for our residents, who are mentally ill and gravely disabled and require skilled nursing care.”

Curtis Hendershott of the TreanorHL offices in Denver was the lead architect for the new Syringa Chalet and Melyssa Feiler of Gallun Snow Associates of Denver provided much of the interior design.

The facility as completed has 11 semi-private rooms and 37 private rooms. “TreanorHL was new to the Boise area when we interviewed for the project,” Hendershott said. “The facility really needed to be tailored to the unique needs of this very special hospital and that meant extensive design meetings to determine what SHS wanted for its patients.

“We had detailed discussions, which resulted in rooms that were both single- and double-occupancy, because some of patients at Syringa that really liked being able to have a roommate they could bond with. We also paid a lot of attention for other patient needs, like the community spaces, the view and the patient areas outside, the dining area, and just having a feeling of openness, both for the safety of the residents and the working ease of the staff in monitoring the patients with clear views, unimpeded from the nursing station down all the wings.”

 “We wanted to help the construction of Syringa Chalet be as smooth as possible for SHS,” said Kurt Hibbert, the planning and zoning director for the City of Blackfoot. “SHS is a good neighbor and because it was such an important project, we set up working meetings with the hospital and the contractor, and their subcontractors in late 2018 and early 2019 to keep the process moving in a positive way.”

“We can’t be more pleased with the new Syringa Chalet,” added Blackfoot Mayor Marc Carroll during the same Nov. 6 interview. “Everything has just gone forward so well throughout the whole project.”

Completion

On the completion of the new Syringa Chalet, Sen. Bair said: “The Syringa Skilled Nursing Facility located on the State Hospital South Campus has far exceeded what I had envisioned. Those most vulnerable in our society now have a comfortable state-of-the-art facility. Those wonderful caretakers at Syringa now have the safe environment in which to work as they care for those patients at Syringa.  We need to recognize and express appreciation to the hundreds of people involved at all levels for this milestone achievement.  This facility will last for many, many generations to come.”

“You should see what they’ve done with the entrance,” Hibbert remarked. “They redid the approach to the SHS grounds so as you drive in, there is the new Syringa Chalet laid out in front of you. Everyone has done such a good job on this.”

The biggest fans are the Syringa Chalet residents and staff. “We’ve been in here now for two months and I can’t say enough for how beautiful this place is,” said Tamara Gillins, the facility’s administrator. “We are so excited with the open floor plan and the wonderful windows. You know, the patients spend a lot of time just looking out the windows. They couldn’t do that in the old building. It makes them so happy and it’s great to watch.

“The nurse’s station is right in the middle center of the facility, so the staff can see down all three halls, into the big open dining room and lounge area. The resident lounge is just off the nurse’s station, so residents can socialize and it gives the staff the ability to keep close supervision of residents who are a high fall risks. We have all the state-of-the-art equipment, rooms with ceiling lifts, an isolation room, an ante room, a modern physical therapy room … I could go on and on about this gorgeous new building, but really the best part of Syringa is the exceptional, compassionate staff. It’s the quality care we provide here for our patients that sets Syringa apart.”

Sadly, Sessions never was able to see the final product of all her years of pushing for a new skilled nursing building at SHS. She did not even see the groundbreaking. She passed away in March 2019 at the age of 64 in Idaho Falls. Her family established the Tracey Sessions Memorial Fund, donations to which are used to purchase art from Idaho artists for display at the new Syringa Chalet.