Senior communities are taking care off-campus (free version)
Plus: Apartments planned for Camp North End?; College students adapt toys for kids with special needs; Good Fellows brings in record $2M for charity; Opening day for Pickleball Charlotte
Good morning! Today is Friday, December 16, 2022. You’re reading The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with local business-y news and insights for Charlotte, N.C.
Editor’s note: This is a shorter, free version of The Charlotte Ledger sent to people on our free sign-up list. The complete version for paying members went out 30 minutes ago. It included:
A local look at what’s become a growing trend nationally in senior care — continuing care retirement communities expanding into the in-home care business outside of their campuses. It’s a big topic for seniors as they age, or for loved ones who will be looking for care for family members.
We’ve got the scoop on what appear to be plans to build apartments in Camp North End. Join us as a Ledger member today and you can see a map and details on what appears to be cooking🍳 near hot Charlotte restaurant Leah & Louise.
A heartwarming engineering story (yes, you read that right) about a club of UNC students who retrofitted toys to be used by kids with special needs.
Original, smart, local news you won’t find anywhere else? ✅
Clickbait, press-release-driven “news” stories designed to stoke controversy or make marketing bigwigs happy? ❌
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With demand for in-home care rising, senior living communities are extending their reach to private homes across Charlotte
by Cristina Bolling
Retirement communities have long been known for their specialized facilities and senior-friendly apartments, and now some communities in Charlotte are boosting their brands beyond their walls — providing in-home care for people who live off their campuses.
It’s part of a growing national trend that experts say is due to an increasing desire by many seniors to “age in place” at home, as well as retirement communities’ ability to eye a need in the market and harness the resources needed to provide the services and earn more revenue.
At Southminster senior living community in south Charlotte, seniors on the “Compass Club” wait list had been asking for in-home care while they waited to move in. So about six years ago, Southminster expanded their Embrace Care home-care service (which was already available to residents on-campus) to people on their wait list.
The program grew slowly until about two years ago, when the company marketed the service to the community at large, and business jumped 115% between 2020 and 2022, said Thomas Brewer, business development manager at Southminster.
Southminster has 115 Embrace Care caregivers who serve both seniors on and off campus, logging 11,000 to 12,000 hours per month. About 20 to 30% of those hours are spent with clients off Southminster’s campus, Brewer said. Some of those clients eventually become Southminster residents, while others are people of all ages who need short-term help after surgeries or other events.
“The majority just need home care in their home and they want to stay in their home as long as possible,” Brewer said. “We never want them to be unsafe, but if they can prolong another two years, three years before they go into a community, they want to stay in their home. They’re attached to their home — it’s their neighborhood, their family.”
Respite care is also a large and growing portion of the in-home care business, as spouses or other family members seek relief from the taxing duties of elder care, said Tess Garcia, director of Embrace Care services
Aldersgate, a senior community on a 230-acre campus in east Charlotte, also offers an in-home care service, Aldersgate At Home, which it started in 2015 and has been building ever since.
Having home care under the established Aldersgate brand — which this year celebrated its 75th anniversary — gives some families extra confidence when choosing caregivers, said Molly Grice, executive director of Aldersgate At Home.
Aldersgate has about 130 caregivers who provide in-home care to both Aldersgate residents and off-campus clients.
“Anytime we say ‘Aldersgate,’ (prospective clients) automatically know we’re affiliated with Aldersgate life plan community, and because we are affiliated with Aldersgate, people are more interested in having services from our agency because we do have that tie,” Grice said.
“A lot of the time, older adults are very hesitant about making the big move into a lifetime community such as Aldersgate, and home care can be that bridge for folks who are not quite comfortable yet,” Grice said. “The question I get a lot is, ‘Can you help me move into assisted living one day, or skilled nursing?’ My answer is always ‘yes.’”
Up next at Camp North End: Apartments next to Leah & Louise?
OK so we know we said in our Wednesday newsletter that a lot of developers are holding off on starting construction on apartments. And we showed the data that the number of multifamily units started in the fourth quarter of this year is ¼ the number from a year ago.
So that’s real. But it is also true that apartment projects still continue to be built.
Case in point: Camp North End last week received two building permits totaling an estimated $65M in construction costs for what appears to be
Related Ledger articles:
“Here come the North End apartments” (🔒, Dec. 17, 2021)
“Flyover Friday: Camp North End up close” (🔒, Aug. 21, 2020)
UNC student organization ‘catches’ children who fall through the cracks of the commercial toy industry
Staff at Novant Health Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics in Charlotte test out modified toys that will be used during sessions with their pediatric patients. Members of the UNC organization CATCH, Bryce Menichella and Katie Chai (pictured in blue from left to right), donated toys that their club modified last semester for children with disabilities.
On Wednesday morning, UNC Chapel Hill students Katie Chai and Bryce Menichella put on masks and carried a box of 10 toys into Novant Health Center for Pediatric Development in Eastover.
But they weren’t just any toys.
Chai and Menichella, who are both Charlotte natives, are on the executive board for Carolina Adapts Toys for Children, or CATCH, which modifies toys to be more accessible for children with disabilities and special needs.
“Children whose muscles have atrophied or who don’t have full motor control of their limbs are able to use these toys to have interactive ways to rehabilitate,” Chai said. “It's a super rewarding experience, especially because we’re working with these kids that just want to be included in the commercial market, and I don’t think there’s really a service that really does that.”
The modified toys include school buses, fire trucks, airplanes and dinosaurs that light up, make noise and move.
To modify the toy, students go into the toy’s circuiting and hook up an external “jelly bean button” so that the toy’s function — whether it’s lights, sounds or movement — can be activated by pushing on the button instead of a tiny switch. The button encourages movement from its user, which will help the patients during rehabilitation and physical therapy sessions.
Staff at Novant Health said their patients respond well to cause-and-effect toys. Because the buttons on the modified toys are large and don’t require much mobility to push, their patients will be able to interact with a toy and see a physical effect.
CATCH, which was founded in Nov. 2018, spent all semester modifying toys to donate to pediatric care facilities like Novant and Atrium Health’s Levine Children Hospital in Charlotte, and Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities and UNC Center for Rehabilitation Care in Chapel Hill.
The club recently expanded to the Charlotte area, largely due to Chai’s connections with Atrium and Novant. Her parents are both physicians.
CATCH gets a majority of its funding from UNC’s student union, which provides funds to on-campus clubs and organizations each year. Each semester, Chai said CATCH spends $1,000 to $2,000 on toys. Including the modifications, each toy costs the club around $20.
Chai is sophomore computer science and biostatistics double major, and Menichella is a junior biomedical engineering major, but students of any major can join the club. No engineering experience is required. The club averaged 35 to 50 students at each weekly meeting last semester. —LB
Record haul for charity at 106th Good Fellows luncheon
The Good Fellows Club’s Christmas Luncheon this week raised a record $2M to benefit people needing help paying rent.
The annual event, in its 106th year, was fully in-person this year after going at least partially virtual the last two holiday seasons because of Covid. It drew about 1,800 men to the Charlotte Convention Center’s Crown Ballroom on Wednesday.
Club president Stick Williams, a retired Duke Energy executive, says donors stepped up to top last year’s record of $1.6M.
“It’s tough out there. The Good Fellows really got that and the fact that we needed to dig a little deeper,” Williams told The Ledger. The money goes toward rental assistance to needy families, and Crisis Assistance Ministry helps in the effort. The luncheons typically attract a Who’s Who of men in Charlotte’s business and civic community, with leaders walking around from table to table collecting donations.
The Good Friends Charlotte luncheon, held by a group of leading local women, was on Thursday. It was still tabulating its donations on Thursday afternoon. (We’ll let you know the figure when we hear it.) —TM
A big dill in the south Charlotte pickleball scene: New indoor facility opens in Ballantyne
The new indoor Pickleball Charlotte opened to the public on Ardrey Kell Road in Ballantyne on Thursday, with seven courts, a pro shop and an event space. Memberships are available but not required, and players can register for courts or open play time through the company’s website. Owner Allen Hasely opened the facility in what was previously the Fitness Connection gym, next door to the Sports Connection family entertainment center.
In brief
Northlake Mall shooting: Two people were shot at Northlake Mall Thursday afternoon in northeast Charlotte. One victim sustained life-threatening injuries and was being treated at an area trauma center. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police had one suspect in custody. (Observer)
CATS operators to vote on strike: CATS bus operators will vote on whether to go on strike after a contract proposal was rejected Thursday, 100 to 93. Operators say they’ve had issue with pay, health insurance and safety and the main issue in the most recent proposal was with the attendance policy. (WBTV)
Charlotte is not Rock Hill: Charlotte officials say the contested bankruptcy filing by a real estate arm of Panthers owner David Tepper related to its Rock Hill development will have no effect on Charlotte’s negotiations with the team over future stadium needs. Assistant City Manager Tracy Dodson told the Charlotte Business Journal: “Rock Hill has always been Rock Hill, and Charlotte’s Charlotte. They’re two different places. What we’ve said all along is that what happens in Rock Hill doesn’t affect Charlotte, and we stand ready to continue our partnership with Tepper Sports.” (Biz Journal, subscriber-only)
Tree gift in honor of former Observer publisher: Nonprofit TreesCharlotte said it received a $1M gift in honor of co-founder Rolfe Neill, longtime publisher of The Charlotte Observer. The donation from the C.D. Spangler Foundation will go toward the organization’s endowment, which is used to help preserve Charlotte’s tree canopy.
CMPD officer convicted: Former Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Officer Phillip Baker, who struck and killed a pedestrian in 2017 while driving 100 mph on Morehead Street, was convicted of misdemeanor death by motor vehicle on Wednesday. He was sentenced to 60 days in jail only if he’s unsuccessful in completing a year of unsupervised probation. He also has to perform 50 hours of community service and is forbidden to drive a motor vehicle for a year. (WFAE)
Magnet school express bus details: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools announced an express bus plan on Tuesday that would affect 5,200 students who attend magnet programs at a dozen high schools. The plan, which would require some students to travel up to three miles from home to catch a bus, would drop the maximum ride time from two hours to 30 minutes. The plan is scheduled to start in August and will help the district save money and cope with driver shortages. (WFAE)
Airport holiday travel: Charlotte Douglas International Airport says its heaviest holiday traffic days will be Dec. 22, Dec. 23 and Jan. 2, and expects as many as 71,000 daily travelers compared to the normal 66,000. CLT suggests arriving early and preparing for long security lines. (CLT Airport)
Novant Health buys 61 acres in Steele Creek: Novant Health has closed on the purchase of 61 acres in the Steele Creek area, the site of a future hospital, according to real estate records. The company paid $15M for the parcel, off Steele Creek Road (N.C. 160) near I-485. State regulators approved a 32-bed hospital at that location in 2021.
Duke Energy sells uptown building: Duke Energy has closed on the sale of 401 S. College St., at the corner of College and Martin Luther King beside the Charlotte Convention Center, property records show. Duke sold the 5-story building on 2.3 acres for $24M. The utility company said in May that the Berlin-based Millennium Venture Capital would knock it down and build luxury apartments, office space, a hotel and retail.
New CEO for Jeld-Wen: Charlotte-based building products manufacturer Jeld-Wen named William (Bill) Christensen as its new CEO on Thursday, according to a company press release. He joined the company in April as its executive vice president after serving as CEO of Rehau AG, a Swiss-based global manufacturer. He replaces Gary Michel, who resigned in August. (PR Newswire)
Apartments headed to nursery site: A joint venture among Abacus Capital, JE Dunn Capital Partners and L&B Realty Advisors has bought the Campbell’s Greenhouse & Nursery site in the Dilworth/South End area for $5M and plans a high-rise apartment project there. The project, on 0.75 acres at 2025 Cleveland Ave., will be called “The Campbell.” (Biz Journal, subscriber-only)
Video game champs: Ardrey Kell High won Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ first esports championship on Wednesday, in which teams competed in the video game “Rocket League.” MVP Haris Mukthar said: “Honestly, don’t know what to say, it’s an honor. When I first came in I’d say we weren’t the best team in the league, but as the season went on we became the best team in the league and ended up winning it all.” (WBTV)
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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Staff writer: Lindsey Banks; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire, CXN Advisory; Contributing photographer/videographer: Kevin Young, The 5 and 2 Project