BY JILL NAGY
Saratoga Hospital and the Wesley Community
plan a $42-million apartment and residential
care facility for senior citizens in Malta.
The Malta Town Board has scheduled a public
hearing on the project, including a request
for a height variance, for March 2. An informal
informational meeting on the project on Jan.
26 “went well,” according to Brian Nealon,
Wesley Community CEO.
The town’s Planning Board recommended
approval at its Dec. 16 meeting. The requested
variance will allow a building height of 60 feet,
the same height as the urgent care facility
already on the parcel.
Two four-story apartment buildings, one
with market rate rents and the other, with
rent-subsidized apartments for low and
middle-income seniors, as well as a residential
care facility, are planned for a 12-acre parcel
on Route 67, west of Northway Exit 12.
The land is in the northern section of a
139-acre Saratoga Medical Park, owned by the
hospital and the site of its new urgent care
center. Previously announced plans for a nursing
home on the land have been abandoned,
said Nealon.
The market-rate apartment building will
be constructed first, he said. It will be a fourstory
structure with 96 apartments, common
areas, a dining room, a media center, and a lap
pool. Construction will probably start toward the end of 2015. The one- and two-bedroom
apartments will range in size from 700 square
feet to 1,300 square feet.
A 75-unit building to house middle- and lowincome
seniors will go up next. These units will
be in a different building from the market-rate
building because of differing federal and state
requirements for subsidized housing, Nealon
explained. Apartment sizes and accompanying
amenities will be similar.
Both facilities are planned for people 62
years of age or older. At least one family member
must be 62 in order for a family to qualify.
Nealon said he was not sure whether children
or teenagers living with qualifying parents or
grandparents would be able to live in the units.
After the apartment building, the residential
care facility will go up, if all goes as planned,
Nealon said. It will be an assisted living facility
for seniors needing some assistance but
not a nursing home or skilled nursing facility,
Nealon explained. Plans for that building are
not yet as far along as the apartment plans, he
said. It will probably start as a 40-bed facility
with eventual expansion to 80 beds.
Construction of the first building is expected
to take a little over a year, according to Nealon.
“We don’t know beyond that,” he said.
Different legal entities to be created by the
Wesley Community will enter into ground lease
agreements with Saratoga Hospital. The new facility will be built and operated by The Wesley
Community, a nonprofit agency sponsored
by United Methodist Health and Housing,
Inc. It already operates a 36-acre facility in
Saratoga Springs and has had a long-standing
partnership with Saratoga Hospital, including
a primary care clinic operated by the hospital at the Wesley Community.
Wesley manages the skilled nursing facility
affiliated with the hospital.
When the Malta development is fully built
out, it is expected to create some 110 full- and
part-time jobs with a total payroll of $3.2 million
a year, Nealon said.