Fern Terrace personal care home to close

Published 8:00 am Thursday, December 7, 2023

Citing decreasing occupancy and a staffing shortage, Bowling Green’s Fern Terrace Lodge personal care home on Shive Lane is closing.

Stacy Helton, general manager of the Owensboro-based Davco Homes Inc. that owns Fern Terrace, said Monday that the Bowling Green facility that provides care for elderly and disabled residents has a capacity of 114 and now has 40 vacancies.

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“We have a lot of vacancies right now, and we have staffing issues,” Helton said. “We had set a closing date of Dec. 8, but we won’t close until every resident is placed somewhere.”

The closing of Fern Terrace, which Helton said opened in 1978, comes roughly two years after Davco closed its Fern Terrace facility in Murray.

At that time, Davco co-owner Darin Simpson said an employee shortage brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic led to that closing.

Simpson also said that restrictions on how much reimbursement personal care homes get from the state has made it difficult to make ends meet.

Helton also cited a “low reimbursement rate” of $49 per day as a reason for the decision to close the Bowling Green facility.

“This has been coming for a while,” she said. “Right now, I feel that this is what’s best for our residents.”

Helton said some of Bowling Green’s Fern Terrace residents are being transferred to Davco facilities in Owensboro or Mayfield. Others may go to personal care homes outside of Davco.

Some staff may transfer to other Davco facilities as well.

“As of now, all our staff members are still at the facility,” Helton said. “After we close, we’ll keep the staff on for a while to do other things.”

Helton said Davco plans to keep the license for the Bowling Green Fern Terrace just in case the environment for personal care homes improves.

“We hope that re-opening is a possibility,” she said.

Bowling Green’s Fern Terrace is part of a company with a long history of providing care primarily for indigent elderly and disabled Kentuckians.

Davco founder Jack Simpson started Davco Rest Home in Owensboro in 1963 and built it into a five-location company that the Davco website says has cared for more than 10,000 residents over the years.

The Bowling Green Fern Terrace Lodge building at 1030 Shive Lane was built in 1972, according to Warren County property records. The 32,000-square-foot building, valued at $1.5 million, is owned by Owensboro’s BGF Real Estate LLC, with Simpson Family Holdings listed as the registered agent.