Long-term costs

McFarland Home redevelopment costs might be out of reach

The price tag might not be quite as high as it was last November when it came in at $93 million, but it is still clear that the cost to build a new long-term care home in the County is out of reach. At last week’s Committee of the Whole, Council was presented a report on the new costs and design plan for the new 160 bed facility.

HDR/Lett Architects was hired by the municipality to design the project, and have since indicated that the land available at the front of the existing H. J. McFarland Home does not provide enough space for the footprint for a new facility. According to a report by Kyle Cotton, Executive Director of Long-Term Care, “Any structure in this area would need to be four or five storeys to accommodate the 160 beds. From a functional design perspective, a facility in this area would have an unconventional design that would complicate resident movement and not allow for unabated ambulation pathways or clear sight lines for staff and resident safety.” The numerous mature trees on the current site, would also need to be cut down, eliminating the appealing park-like setting. “The best possible and most feasible location based on the size of the facility is at the back,” added Cotton.

According to Cotton, a single- or two-storey facility built behind the existing Home, closer to Millennium Trail, will afford greater creativity to adhere with current long-term care home design trends and allow the architects to incorporate ideas and comments from the consultations with existing user groups including the resident and family councils.

The proposed facility size is 136,000 square feet, providing approximately 850 square feet per resident bed. This per resident allotment would be consistent with other municipalities and above what for-profit and not-for-profit operators are building. The total estimated cost for the facility is $75,558,000. This includes a 10 per cent contingency. Subject to finalizing a development agreement, the Ministry of Long- Term Care will provide upon occupancy, $1,258,213 annually over a 25-year period, for a total of $31,454,469 as a Construction Funding Subsidy to offset the County’s debt financing arrangements for the cost of the project.

Councillor John Hirsch noted the good news of a cheaper facility was still bad news in the long run. “I guess the good news is that we somehow managed to bring the cost of the facility down from the $93 million. However, we are now looking at $75,558,000 and expecting to get $31,454,000 from the province. That is 41.6 per cent. That is not what we were promised in the lobby of the current HJ McFarland Home a couple of years ago when the mayor and I were there with the Minister of Long- Term Care,” said Hirsch. “This is just not going to be affordable. We keep working to this 2024 magic date that the current home will be apparently uninhabitable. I can’t imagine the province is going to insist on the date if we are just not financially in a position to make this happen.”

CAO Marcia Wallace shared that until the County has a development agreement there is no real deadline. She also noted that the County has not been collecting enough in the way of development charges. “We are proposing a new bylaw that will rectify that our current bylaw was based on the fact that we were calculating this as an expansion to an existing building, not a new one,” said Wallace, who also noted that there is work to do related to sponsorships and other avenues the County thinks might be lucrative funding sources.

Wallace also said that large projects such as a new long-term care home are much more complicated in a small community like Prince Edward County. She told Council that a large portion of the build cost is interest that needs to be paid because the province doesn’t release the funds all at once. “We still have to build the thing upfront. We are carrying debt cost to manage the portion of dollars we know they are going to give us, and we borrow from the province. There is an argument to be made that they should either make the borrowing zero per cent interest because we are really just borrowing in order to cover the fact their money comes in slowly. Or they should give the money in a lump sum,” said Wallace, who also noted that a lot of the folks at the provincial level are used to working with big cities where debt financing is not an issue.

Mayor Steve Ferguson added that he drove the point home recently. “That light went on twice this week at the ROMA conference with both Ministers Surma and Jones when it was explained to them that a 1 per cent tax increase represents about $450,000,” said Ferguson.