Senior housing complex gets early approval

A senior housing development proposed on Mentor’s south side is a step closer to reality.

The city Planning Commission on March 5 granted permits and preliminary approvals related to Beachwood-based Omni Senior Living’s plans for a complex consisting of up to 63 ranch-style villas and 144 units in a threestory, 129,600-square-foot independent living facility linked with a 58,000-square-foot assisted living/memory care section.

The project, at 8150 Mentor Hills Drive southwest of Interstate 90 and Route 615, positions the villas on about 20 acres south of the Symphony at Mentor and Heartland of Mentor facilities.

“We look at it as a continuum of care,” said Omni representative Gary Biales. “There are people that would move into a villa that still want a garage, still want their own house-like space, but they want a lot of things supplied to them, whether it’s housekeeping, whether it’s meals. We offer a lot of things to these individuals. But they’re not ready to go into an apartment atmosphere.”

He noted that the average age of individuals in Omni’s independent living communities is 80.

“If (they are) 70, they say, ‘I’m too young to live there,’ but the villas, they’re not,” Biales said. “They don’t want their big house anymore, they want activities, individuals the same age, and that’s what we’re trying to do on the rear parcel.”

The ranches would be attached to up to five other units, ranging from 1,300 to 1,500 square feet each with two bedrooms and oneor two-car garages.

Proposed amenities include a

clubhouse and three separate dining rooms in the complex. The villas would be built in phases, 10 to 12 units at a time, Biales said.

The preliminary site plan approval included a condition that the applicant add a second access to the villa property for the final submission.

“This population is probably going to have a higher incident use of emergency vehicles,” commission member Geoffrey Varga said.

The developer is exploring an access for emergency vehicles only via the Heartland of Mentor site.

“I possibly could lose one villa,” he said.

The property has a long history of development proposals.

Omni in September 2018 received preliminary approval from the commission for a 146-unit project

The latest proposal is considered consistent with the site’s original approved development plan from 1982, which indicated 300 apartment units, cluster ranch units and a nursing home.

with 88 independent living units within a threestory wing, 40 units in a two-story assisted living wing and 16 units within a single-story memory care wing.

The latest proposal is considered consistent with the site’s original approved development plan from 1982, which indicated 300 apartment units, cluster ranch units and a nursing home.

The nursing home, Heartland of Mentor, went forward in 1984.

In September 1994, City Council approved rezoning about 12 acres from MRD, Research & Development to B-1, Community Service for an Alzheimer’s facility with 52 rooms and a threestory, 150-unit residential care facility.

The Alzheimer’s facility, Kemper House, was built in 2000.

In November 2004, a development plan was submitted for 48 single-family detached units and seven four-story apartment buildings on about 29 acres, but the commission voted to dismiss the plan without prejudice.

Since then, Symphony at Mentor, an Alzheimer’s and dementia care facility, opened in the Kemper House location.