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Aged ‘eye sore’ may be reborn
(by Karen F. Mrnarevic - March 05, 2008)
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Staff Photo by Karen F. Mrnarevic
The Armenian Home for the Aged in Emerson is seeking planning board approval to demolish and reconstruct the nursing and rehabilitation facility.
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The Home for the Armenian Aged, at 70 Main St. in Emerson, has submitted an application to the borough Planning Board for a proposed demolition and reconstruction of the facility. The non-profit organization, which currently cares for approximately 82 individuals (35 percent of whom are of Armenian descent), hopes to undergo a complete rebuild. According to architectural plans, which have not yet been approved, the currently disjointed and oddly arranged set of buildings would be completely demolished in stages to make way for a new two-story facility and enlarged parking lot.
The new 160 bed Armenian Nursing and
Rehabilitation
Center would boast 46,164 square feet of floor space, would be 40 feet in height, and would include a parking lot with 101 spaces. According to the organization’s attorney, Allen M. Bell of Jacobs and
Bell PA in Tenafly, the reason for the planned construction is simple: “The buildings are old and not as efficient as they could be… They can greater serve the community by enlarging the home.”
In the mid-1930s, nine Armenian women from Emerson, troubled by the high cost of nursing homes, went door to door after church to collect donations to go toward establishing a place were elderly Armenian people could find rest and care. They accumulated $15,000, with which they purchased a three-acre parcel of land on what is now Main Street, and built a small nursing home. In 1938, the building, which housed three residents, was formally established as The Home for the Armenian Aged.
In the 70 years that followed, the facility underwent many changes. What was once just a home for the elderly now serves people of all ages and cultural backgrounds who are in need of nursing care, and excepts both Medicare and Medicaid. As the facility has grown and the number of patients increased, numerous wings have been added on without regard for aesthetic appeal. The result is what the home’s president, Andrew Torigian, calls an “eye sore.” That may be about to change.
Bell suggests that the layout of the new facility, which would consist of a single square building with a center courtyard, would allow for easier monitoring of the patients, since they would be consolidated into one space rather than spread out among various different structures. Additionally, “it will be a state of the art facility,” which would enable the staff to offer more seamless patient care and administer various programs, such as occupational therapy and physical therapy. The facility would still function as a nursing home that provides sub-acute care, “but care will be improved and more members of the community will be served.”
The new face of the home should be a welcome change to its neighbors as well.
Bell says of the design, “Aesthetically, it will look like a residential structure.” The plan calls for landscaping, including evergreens, shade trees and flowering trees and shrubs. The façade of the building would be embellished with metal awnings and faux columns. The property would still include “a lot of green space,” and would be re-graded and equipped for better drainage. “It’s a win-win situation for everybody,” says
Bell .
Since the site plan calls for the total demolition of the existing structures, accommodating the existing patients during construction is an issue that the facility must seriously consider. According to
Bell , prior to demolition, “patients will be reduced to some number that hasn’t been determined yet, but the main nursing center will remain intact.” When construction commences, patients would be moved to one wing of the existing facility that is 15 feet from the site of the new building. Once construction is complete, they would be transitioned into the new facility.
The patient relocation plan, however, is not set in stone. “The State of
New Jersey will have to approve all of this. It’s a very rigid approval process for the sequence of construction and how the patients will be dealt with,” says
Bell . Therefore, at this point, the project does not have a definitive start date.
If the plan is approved, the look of the home would change drastically, but its mission would remain the same. The current property features a monument, constructed in 1964, to honor the memory of the “2 Million Christian Armenians massacred by the [Ottoman] Turks,” between 1915 and 1918. Torigian says that the memorial will be relocated into the new facility. He feels that the $10 to $15 million reconstruction, which will be financed by a combination of loans and fundraising, will also honor the many volunteers who have dedicated their time to keeping the home afloat all these years.
“For last 10 years,” he says, “a group of ladies, the Friends of the Armenian Home, has raised money consistently to improve the infrastructure of the home… to make it feel less like a hospital and more like a home.” The proposed construction would hopefully be a gratifying change for them, says Torigian, as well as for the Emerson community.
Karen F. Mrnarevic's e-mail address is Mrnarevic@northjersey.com.
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