Construction costs jack up price of planned Portland nursing home by 47%
File Image / Courtesy, Gawron Turgeon Architects
An artist's rendering in 2019 showed the entrance of the proposed Fallbrook Care Center in the North Deering neighborhood of Portland.
The long-planned construction of a nursing home in Portland has just become a bigger project, and a much more costly one.
Developers of Fallbrook Care Center, a 90-bed facility in North Deering that was proposed in 2019 and budgeted at $28.9 million, last week obtained state approval to expand the facility slightly and to spend $42.5 million on it.
The 47% cost increase is partly the result of adding 12 beds to the original plan, a change necessitated by growing demand for senior care and the new economics of the project, the developers say.
But the expansion won’t affect the building’s footprint, since the higher capacity will be offset by converting 12 of the facility’s planned 64 single-bed rooms into doubles.
Most of the extra expense stems from a familiar challenge.
“Unfortunately, the current cost of construction in Maine is challenging, to say the least, and has increased dramatically since we first filed our application,” wrote Daniel J. Maguire, managing partner of Portland-based developer Sandy River Co., in a request to amend the project’s state certificate of need.
A memo on the project from the state Department of Health Human Services reads: “There have been double-digit increases in construction and material costs, caused by labor shortages across all sectors needed for this project. Additionally, pricing is extremely volatile, and contractors have increased their estimates of the cost of material that will be needed during construction.”
A budget breakdown filed with the state shows that $12.4 million of the $13.6 million cost increase is for construction. Scarborough-based Landry/French is the contractor on the job.
Fallbrook Care Center will become part of a campus with Fallbrook Woods, an assisted-living memory-care center located on 17 acres at 60 Merrymeeting Way in Portland.
The new facility will ultimately replace a nearby nursing home, St. Joseph’s Rehabilitation and Residence, which intends to sell its contract with MaineCare — the state’s Medicaid program — to Sandy River. It’s partnering with North Country Associates, a residential care provider headquartered in Lewiston.
St. Joseph’s, founded in 1975 and originally overseen by the Portland Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church, transferred ownership to Maine Medical Center and parent organization MaineHealth in 2017.
The plans for St. Joseph’s successor were welcomed three years ago.
“A new facility that allows staff to meet the dynamic needs of patients and residents will be a landmark in our history of caring for older adults and upholding and respecting the dignity of all persons,” CEO Peggy Farrington said at the time. “The agreements will allow patients and residents to be served at a time when many other organizations are challenged to remain open.”
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