Lewis Manor in Franklin to close
Published 8:00 am Friday, February 2, 2024
- An old Lewis Memorial personal care home apartments sign sits among a pile of chopped wood and branches behind Lewis Manor Assisted Living Community on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024, after the facility announced Tuesday that it will cease all assisted living, personal care and independent apartment operations at 2901 Bowling Green Road in Franklin on Feb. 29, 2024, due to increasing costs and low occupancy since the end of the COVID 19 epidemic. (Grace Ramey/grace.ramey@bgdailynews.com)
The Lewis Manor Assisted Living Community, a public nonprofit assisted living facility in Franklin, will close at the end of February.
Scott Hall, president of the facility’s board of directors, said the facility is closing due to a lack of residents.
“We don’t have enough money to pay the bills,” Hall said.
The Lewis Home is divided into three sections – the assisted living facility, the Lewis Manor Independent Living Apartments and the original Lewis Home, a personal care facility. The assisted living facility has a capacity of 32 residents, and the independent living apartments have a capacity of six.
Hall said the personal care section was closed in August. Before it closed, there were only eight residents, with a capacity of 20.
Hall said the facility needs to be at 80% or more of its capacity to operate. Currently, the facility only has 48% occupancy. The home will assist its current residents in finding other retirement opportunities in the region.
Hall said the last time the facility was full was January 2021.
“As you get older, your dynamics change very quickly,” Hall said. “You can be very healthy and then have one slip and fall and you can be in a wheelchair. You could be full one day and then have three beds open the next day.”
Hall said a “perfect storm” of issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in the closure, including fear of spreading the disease and financial issues that limit the ability for new residents to move in.
“We came out of COVID and we couldn’t get people to come in,” Hall said. “They’re scared of COVID, and now they don’t have enough money to come and stay there.”
Hall also said the opening of the assisted and independent living facilities has added to the Lewis Home’s financial woes. Construction on the facilities began in April of 2020, just after the start of the pandemic, and prices of construction materials increased.
Hall said the project, which was scheduled to take 10 months originally, ended up taking 21 months to complete. Total cost of constructing the addition was $2.3 million, 10% more than was estimated originally.
After expending all other options, the board decided on Jan. 25 to close the home. Hall said the board and residents and staff at the facility are “in a state of shock.”
“We’re going through the stages of grief,” Hall said. “It’s like you lost your home.”
