SUNDRE — Although plans to develop and breathe new life into the former Foothills Lodge as a care centre have been delayed by the unfolding pandemic, they have not been derailed, and the Calgary-based owner expressed no regrets about his newest acquisition.
“My experience with the local people so far has really been favourable, very pleasant to work with,” Joel Bond, the owner of Travois Holdings Ltd., said on Friday, Dec. 18 during a phone interview.
In retrospect, Bond, whose family company also operates two care centres in Calgary — the Mayfair and Glamorgan care centres — added the decision seemed to be a positive one despite the COVID-19 crisis.
After earlier this fall tentatively purchasing the property for about $1.5 million, Bond has since taken possession of the building.
“With the help of a few local people, we’ve already started to do some demolition and some fixing up of the place,” he said, adding no unpleasant surprises such as hidden damage was discovered to date.
Bond said he has also been corresponding with Alberta Health Services and submitted earlier in November an application with the provincial health authority to make the building a care site in the future, a process that during the best of times would have to grind through bureaucratic gears.
“That could take several months to get some approvals, especially now that everything is kind of delayed,” he said.
“The pandemic has slowed decisions.”
It has also presented substantial logistical hurdles.
Glamorgan Care Centre is containing “a very serious COVID outbreak” after a resident recently tested positive, while one of the kitchen staff at the Mayfair Care Centre — but none of the residents — was also found to have contracted the virus just hours before Bond spoke with The Albertan.
“That means all of my kitchen (staff) for the entire weekend until they get negative tests, is gone. So, I’m gonna be cooking in the kitchen!” he said.
“I lose 18 staff in a minute…logistically, through the weekend, that creates a little bit of a nightmare,” he said, adding retracing essentially involves testing all of the staff and residents at an affected facility.
“You’re in a 24-hour planning cycle that changes every day. You don’t know what staff and resources you have daily, really. I mean, it changes constantly — hourly.”
But he’s taking the uncertainty of the unfolding situation in stride and said it’s a matter of rolling with the punches.
While it might not seem like it for the time being, he is optimistic the eventual country-wide roll out of the new vaccine will herald “the beginning of the end,” and added, “our workers are going to be starting to get calls to go for the vaccine, we were told hopefully beginning this weekend.”
Additionally, he said there are some lessons to be learned in the fallout of the pandemic.
“It just sort of reinforces the importance of developing new spaces that are private, in our care settings,” he said.
For example, if Glamorgan had private rooms, Bond said “we would be in a much better spot than where we’re currently at. Shared rooms make it tough to manage an outbreak,” he said.
“The majority of long-term care is shared. There’s definitely private rooms, but there’s a lot of older facilities that have shared rooms, and that’s a problem,” he said.
“So, that’s where Sundre, in the long-term I think, is more than perfect,” he said, confirming when asked that the former Foothills Lodge would “100 per cent” feature private rooms for residents, provided that’s the road they end up going down.
Although efforts are ongoing to ensure the building and property are maintained, including some Christmas light decorations, Bond essentially remains in a holding pattern.
“We’re just waiting on a definitive answer as to where we’re headed with that project. Part of that is just patience in dealing with Alberta Health and the government, understanding that we’re in a pandemic.”
Also yet to be decided is an official name for the facility. But if he were to follow suit with his other care centres, named after the communities they’re located in, the natural name would be Sundre Care Centre, he said.
“It’s not final by any stretch,” said Bond, adding he’s receptive to suggestions to make it a little more romantic with a local flare, including perhaps naming it after the Bearberry Creek or Red Deer River.
For the immediate future, however, his focus is largely set on his operational facilities in Calgary as his company navigates through the pandemic.
“That’s taking the lion’s share of my time now,” he said.
“But it’s not going to be like this forever.”
