LAKEPORT — Hospice Services of Lake County revealed preliminary plans Tuesday to build a new facility to relieve the load overburdening its current downtown Lakeport location.
Executive Director Marlene Kurowski presented tentative plans to the Board of Supervisors that involve the possible lease of property at Sutter Lakeside Hospital”s Wellness Village Campus on Hill Road.
The current facility on South Main Street in Lakeport houses a thrift shop and administrative building. Kurowski called it “woefully inadequate” because of the amount of space needed for washing, mending and preparing donated items for sale in the thrift shop. She added that the thrift shop has often had to turn away donations due to lack of space.
Hospice provides medical and counseling services to patients who have been given a six-month prognosis, said Kurowski, as well as bereavement services for family members of anyone who has passed on, whether from natural causes or otherwise.
Hospice”s board of directors hopes to break ground on a facility that would house an inpatient unit for bed-ridden patients, as well as space for staff training, bereavement counseling and administrative offices.
Kurowski said the total project cost was estimated at $4 million; she said she was hoping the BOS would fund the $80,000 of that needed for the functional space analysis and conceptual design phases of the project.
She said Hospice could be ready to break ground on the new facility five years from when the grounds were made ready.
Sutter was not the only site discussed for the new facility. A site in Clearlake near Redbud Hospital was listed on Tuesday”s BOS agenda for discussion, falling within Dist. 2 Supervisor Jeff Smith”s district.
“It”s a beautiful facility, and I”d love to see it in my district,” said Smith, to qualify his misgivings about using the property for Hospice”s purposes.
The Clearlake property”s proximity to Yuba College and the hospital, he said, puts its highest and best use in question, said Smith.
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com.
