TORRINGTON – Welcov Healthcare, the Minnesota-based company which operates nursing homes and senior care facilities in Iowa, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wyoming, cited financial challenges in confirming last week it is stepping away from some of its operations as part of a company-wide reorganization.
Ashley Harpstreith, CEO of the Goshen County Economic Development Corporation, said Monday the company’s issues don’t affect senior care facilities Goshen Healthcare Community and Evergreen Court in Torrington. Nor will they impact plans for construction of a $7 million, 30-unit assisted living center to be dubbed Evergreen Plaza. The GCEDC and the Goshen Care Center Joint Powers Board, the entity charged with oversite on senior care in the community, will be meeting with architects late this week to begin the design process for the new facility, Harpstreith said.
“We are now in the first stages of meeting with architects,” said Paul Novak, chairman of the Joint Powers Board. “Soon we will have a direction of what the building is going to be, a time-line for the building.”
In September, the Wyoming Business Council approved a $3 million Business Ready Community grant for the project.
Tom Dixon, content marketing manager for the Wyoming Business Council, said Friday the Welcov reorganization should have no impact on the grant, which was approved for the Joint Powers Board for construction of Evergreen Plaza, not Welcov Healthcare. WBC still believes the Evergreen Plaza project is important to the community, both for seniors and to provide needed jobs in the area, Dixon said.
Welcov Healthcare is the third management company contracted with the Joint Powers Board to oversee senior healthcare and residency concerns in Goshen County in Novak’s 40 years on the board, he said. Evergreen Plaza is solely a project of the Joint Powers Board, working in conjunction with the GCEDC.
Reading a prepared statement, Harpstreith told the Telegram: “Everyone involved is insuring the residents and staff (of the current senior care facilities) are taken care of. We are moving forward with the (Evergreen Plaza) project, with the expansion. As far as the details of the other company (Welcov), that’s privy information.”
Harpstreith further noted Monday she was “bound by a confidentiality agreement not to say much more” regarding the future of the Welcov agreement with the Joint Powers Board. Novak, when asked about potential legal action, said he couldn’t “comment too much on that. We’re now looking at options.”
Novak declined to comment when asked if there had been discussion about another change in management firms.
Tom Boerboom, Welcov Healthcare president, told the Telegram last week the company remains committed to the Goshen Healthcare Community and Evergreen Court Living Centers in Torrington, as well as the future Evergreen Plaza.
“Welcov has experienced some challenges, similar to challenges many others in the (Evergreen Plaza) industry have,” Boerboom said. “Labor costs and benefit costs have exploded, really impacted the industry. Welcov hasn’t been immune from that.”
The company is currently in the process of “winding down operations,” he said. “But Goshen (Healthcare Community) has been insulated from those issues.”
Boerboom said the project, as well as overall operations in Goshen County, remain a priority.
The reorganization of the company “really shouldn’t affect (the project) at all, in my opinion,” he said. “We signed a lease agreement to help bring that facility on board and to operate it. We have the capabilities to do that.
We don’t want any adverse effects on that facility at all,” Boerboom said. “We’ve worked pretty hard to make sure things continue on as they have been.”
At some point in the future, there will no longer be a Welcov. The new company, which Boerboom said is still in the process of being organized, will be focused primarily on operations in Goshen County. Welcov’s other facilities, including two facilities in Casper, will be transferred to other senior healthcare management companies, he said.
But “Goshen (Healthcare Community, Evergreen Court and Evergreen Plaza) will be transferred to our new company,” Boerboom said. “It will be comprised of many of the same people who’ve worked at Goshen before.”
Some corporate operations will be moving to Torrington as well, while the new company will continue other operations out of its Minneapolis, Minn., offices.
