CUMBERLAND COUNTY – An expansion project at Uplands Village in Pleasant Hill is nearing completion, meaning soon, retired residents at the continued care complex will be able to enjoy some new state-of-the-art amenities, including a lap pools, a therapy pool and hot tub.
According to the Crossville Chronicle, a new aquatic therapy center is slated to open in February and a new wellness center sometime in the spring. The aquatic center, a new build, is an item long on the center’s wish list, that Richard Woodard, Uplands Village executive director, told the UCBJ, was largely spurred a new generation of seniors – a generation that expects more and better housing options, extras and activities.
“It’s all (based on) market demand,” Woodard told the UCBJ in October. “Quite frankly, I’ve been doing this for 25-plus years, and who has been my traditional customer, if you will, that World War II, Depression-era retiree, that number is shrinking rapidly. As we start looking at the baby boomers coming, they have very different expectations. Our residents are expecting private rooms, they expect all the technologies, they expect the therapies to be the best of the best.”
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The aquatic center will feature two pools, a 20-by-60 foot saltwater lap pool and a saltwater therapy pool, as well as a hot tub. The wellness center, respectively, part of a $5 million gut and renovation of a building that’s been closed since 2010, is a 31-bed, Medicare A and B certified skilled nursing and rehabilitation therapy facility. It will include a gym for physical, occupational and speech therapy; kitchen and dining space; a café featuring fresh foods; and a 16-bay integrated computer lab.
Uplands Village, a continued care retirement community, offers several levels of accommodations in one setting; the complex spans more than 500 acres. The Chronicle said completion of the two new facilities was delayed by last February’s historic ice storm, from which the Cumberland Plateau was hardest hit, as well as heavy rainstorms last spring and early summer.
