QUINCY — In order to meet the growing needs of the community, Sunset Home is preparing for a major expansion that would include a new 106-bed skilled nursing facility on Fourth Street.
Sunset Home Administrator Jerry Neal said this new facility would provide an anchor for continued development of Sunset’s campus, which would include a converted 18-bed assisted living space, a new 24-bed assisted living facility and the addition of patio homes on the north side of the campus and along Fourth.
Sunset Home is in the preliminary stages of a multi-year capital campaign, 728 Project, to fulfill the highest priorities of the expansion.
“If this thing works out like a Hallmark movie where you know the ending within the first 15 minutes of the show, then we’re looking at starting construction in July of 2022, so a little over a year from now, and probably an 18-month to two-year build,” Neal said.
Sunset Home has served the Quincy community for over 130 years. Its last significant expansion to the campus was in 2001 when a 43-bed specialized care unit was added.
Prior to that, Sunset Villas were added to the campus in 1980 to add an independent living option for residents.
Neal said the new facility would reduce the number of beds Sunset Home currently offers. However, this could be advantageous to maintain health populations at St. Vincent’s Home and Good Samaritan Home, which are still needed in the community.
Over the last five years, 1,118 residents have been admitted to Sunset Home for short- or long-term care, according to data from the facility.
In that same period, Adams County lost two of its skilled nursing facilities: Sycamore Healthcare Center in Quincy and North Adams Home in Mendon. This amounted to a loss of 297 licensed beds in the county, according to data from Sunset Home.
Currently, there are 473 licensed skilled nursing facility beds in Quincy and 629 licensed beds total in Adams County.
