By Jim Pruitt
If all goes as planned, St. Louis Center will break ground next year on a new housing project designed to increase the number of residents.
Representatives of the center and its engineering consultants appeared before the Sylvan Township Planning Commission on Thursday, Sept. 24 to let them know about the project. The commission was not asked to take any action now, but some will be required in the coming months.
The center plans to spend between $10 million and $12 million to use 20 acres of its property to build 25-30 units of various housing styles. The expansion would create housing for 75-85 residents ranging from children to older adults in assisted living.
“There will be 90 beds for licensed care,” Father Enzo Addari said. “Some will be double bunked.”
Single moms could live in separate housing on the campus to be near their children, Addari said.
The center has raised $5 million of the projected costs and expects to raise more money through various organizations and the Michigan State Housing Development Authority for its unlicensed buildings.
The St. Louis Center has been serving people from birth through age 26 with developmental disabilities and has been expanding its reach to older adults whose caregivers have gotten too old or have died, Addari said. Around a quarter of caregivers now are 65 years of age or older, he said.
The Center has been adapting to the changing world of caring for the developmentally disabled as the political landscape has changed, Finance Director Michael Kutas said. As the years go by, as the politics of care have changed, so have the demographics of the residents.
“There has been a split at around age 26 with people leaving school and the need for residential places for older people growing,” Kutas said.
The changes mean places like the St. Louis Center has to adapt and plan ahead to meet the demands of the future. With improved healthcare, the disabled need a place to go.
“People with disabilities are outliving caregivers,” Kutas said. “Residents are those whose caregivers can’t do it anymore.
“We have to make sure the St. Louis Center is able to meet the changes in politics.”
The land eyed for the development, to be called Guanella Village, includes wetlands and has surface water on site. The land is currently zoned agricultural, so a zoning change will be required in the near future.
The site is too far away from municipal water and sewer lines. It would cost at least $1 million just to lay the pipe to the end of the system.
The development will feature group homes, single family residences and assisted living facilities. Some will be attached, others unattached. About a third of the homes will be licensed.
The village will be intimately scaled allowing some homes to have driveways and one- or two-car garages. Some homes will have front porches.
There will be three six-bedroom children’s homes with 5 bedrooms for children and one for a visiting relative or a staff member. A two-bedroom single family unit will be about 1,000 square feet.
Another section will feature cottages for low functioning adults with an internal courtyard and two pair of attached four bedroom units or 16 total bedrooms.
The village will include a community building and chapel that can be accessed without having to cross any roads or driveways. A small retail shop will feature a coffee shop and convenience store and sell fresh vegetables grown on a farm across Old US-12.
The goal is to have all the buildings look and feel like a home and to have family nearby for some of the younger residents.
Planning Commission Chair Dawn Caplis thanked the center representatives for coming out and asked her colleagues about the process needed to accomplish the objective. The first step will include getting the mechanism for a special use request started, Caplis said.
“This is quite an interesting project; it would serve the St. Louis Center and Sylvan Township,” Caplis said. “I appreciate you are willing to work with us.”
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