The Spires at Berry set to open in June
♦ The new director will be busy from the start hiring for the health care positions.
The Spires at Berry College, a continuing care retirement community being developed adjacent to Eagle Lake, is on schedule with the first residents expected to move in sometime around June of 2020.
Monika Lawrence, marketing director for the development, told members of the Rome Seven Hills Rotary Club Tuesday the 170-unit retirement community is now 80% leased out.
“We’re on time and on schedule,” Lawrence said.
The 26 cottages and west wing of the apartment building will be the first sections of the complex to open.
“You have to be 55 and up. It’s for people who are looking to join and be a part of a community where they can still stay active and live independently,” Lawrence said.
The retirement community has a health care building where residents can move to assisted living, memory care or skilled nursing services.
“Isolation, loneliness and depression are huge issues among those of us who are aging,” Lawrence said.
Laurie Steber, from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, has been hired as The Spires at Berry’s first executive director.
Steber, who will join the facility in Rome next month, will be responsible for hiring the rest of the leadership team. Lawrence said Steber would be very closely involved with the development of the health care building, which will include over 100 rooms and onsite physicians services.
“She is going to be very, very busy hiring for those positions,” Lawrence said.
Lawrence said about half of those who have made deposits currently live within the Northwest Georgia area and more than 20 residents are relocating from the Big Canoe retirement community near Jasper.