On a bright, brisk Tuesday morning hundreds gathered on the Ellenville Regional Hospital's front lawn to participate in the groundbreaking ceremony for the facility's next big venture - a 144-unit senior housing complex that will be built on the hospital's campus between the current building and Route 209.

The morning's programs included remarks from ERH President Steve Kelley, Warwick Properties' Jonah Mandelbaum and State Senator John J. Bonacic (R) as well as a blessing by Shiloh Baptist minister and ERH board member, Reverend Julius Collins.

The project is said to have been part of the hospital's long-term goals for decades. Kuhlman said that he and fellow board member Ron Elias remember discussions about the need for senior housing in the area that go back more than 30 years.

Prospective tenants Sylvia Fogarty and Carol Lounsberry.   Photo by Stefan Spezio

Kelley emphasized the need for such services for local seniors as he told the crowd that the hospital already had a waiting list of 85 names for the project's first phase. The project, which will be completed in three stages, will start with a 55-unit building that is slated to begin construction within the next few weeks.

“Within the week you will see surveyors here. In the next weeks you will see bulldozers pushing the dirt around,” said Mandelbaum, the hospital's partner in the project. Mandelbaum is currently the largest builder of affordable senior housing in New York State. He has succeeded in building over 600 senior housing units in Orange and Sullivan counties. The nearest example of Mandelbaum's work is a Pine Bush facility that was profiled in the Ellenville Journal earlier this year.

Mandelbaum added that the rents for each of the 55 units will be based on the prospective tenant's income and range between $200-$500 per month.

State Senator Bonacic spoke about the community's unflagging support for the hospital as the reason the facility has not just survived in recent years, but shown signs of growth.

“You not only have a hospital. You have a better hospital. You have cutting edge healthcare here,” he said.

Bonacic then praised Mandelbaum's track record of not only building senior housing complexes, but staying on after construction was completed in order to manage them. The state senator said that Mandelbaum's residents know who he is and that, “he knows every one of them by name.”

Bonacic added that the greatest benefit of the senior housing project is that the area's “golden citizens” would now have a place, “to live the rest of their lives with dignity.” Two such citizens are long time hospital volunteers and area residents Sylvia Fogarty and Carol Lounsberry, each of whom heard about the senior housing project early on and signed up to be on the first phase's waiting list.

“Between the stairs, the yard and my gardens - it's just too much [to take care of],” says Fogarty.

Lounsberry agreed that maintenance on her current home was too much of a demand. Both women were excited by the prospect of less housework, not to mention the view they anticipate having from their new apartments.

“What a location! I mean, just look at this,” said Fogarty as she scanned the mountains to the east of the hospital's campus.

With regards to Kelley's view of the future, he says he sees the senior housing project as a continuation of the hospital's resurgence from near bankruptcy a few years ago and the beginning of a “continuum of senior care that goes from independent housing to assistive living to [at some point in the future] nursing home beds.”

The groundbreaking is just the most recent development in ERH's progress over the last 18 months that have seen the completion of a new emergency room, the purchasing of new diagnostic and lab equipment, new personnel and a new women's health center.

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