Construction is under way on the first phase of what ultimately is expected to be an approximately $50 million skilled-nursing and retirement complex in Post Falls that will include a total of 320 rooms and apartments.


Life Care Centers of America Inc., headquartered in Cleveland, Tenn., which is building the planned Garden Plaza retirement complex there, expects to create about 170 jobs and have an annual payroll of more than $4 million at the property after it completes both of its two planned phases of development, says Linda Cross, senior project manager at Life Care.


A skilled-nursing facility called Life Care Center of Garden Plaza will be constructed in the first phase of the project, and it should open in the fall of 2008, Cross says. The one-story, 120-bed facility will have 40 private rooms and 40 semiprivate rooms and will be operated by Life Care Centers.


Along with residents rooms, the 63,000-square-foot building will include administrative space, a kitchen, library, beauty shop, and additional spaces for family and resident activities, she says.


We have long-term skilled nursing and short-term rehabilitation areas, and a wing that will cater to orthopedic rehabilitation, like knee, hip, and joint replacement, Cross says.


Life Care employs its own construction manager, but will use local subcontractors for the construction work, she says. Lantz-Boggio Architects PC, of Englewood, Colo., designed the project, and the project engineer is Frame & Smetana PA, of Coeur dAlene.


The development site is located between the Coeur dAlene RV Resort, at 2600 E. Mullan, and a Wal-Mart Stores Inc. store, at 3000 E. Mullan.


Life Care has applied for a building permit for the second and final phase of Garden Plaza, which it plans to open in 2009, Cross says. That phase is to include construction of a 265,000-square-foot combined assisted- and independent-living facility, with a total of 95 apartments in a three-story assisted-living wing and 145 apartments in an attached three-story independent-living wing.


Those facilities will be operated by Chattanooga, Tenn.-based Century Park Associates LLC, an affiliate of Life Care, Cross says. The two companies currently operate a total of 11 facilities in Idaho, and about 270 facilities in 28 states.


Cross says this campus will be one of Life Cares largest. Life Care, launched in 1970, provides a range of services that also include housing for Alzheimers patients, respite care, hospice care, adult day care, and rehabilitation.


Contact Jeanne Gustafson at (509) 344-1264 or via e-mail at jeanneg@spokanejournal.com.