Rockynol building could get facelift as day services planned for hundreds of adults

McGregor PACE, a Cuyahoga County-based nonprofit senior care organization, plans to provide day services to up to 400 adults 55 and older on the first floor of the western building at the Ohio Living Rockynol campus in Akron.

The existing 19,000 square feet on the first of three floors at 1275 W. Exchange St. and a planned 1,600-square-foot addition to the building’s front will serve as an adult day services center pending Akron City Council approval of the facade addition.

The Akron Planning Commission unanimously voted this month to recommend approval of the new 1,600-square-foot area.

McGregor PACE will provide Summit County residents 55 and older morning transportation to and evening transportation from the new facility, called the McGregor PACE Center, said Ann Conn, president of the nonprofit and president and CEO of the Cleveland-based McGregor Foundation.

“There are thousands of individuals that are currently in living in Summit County that want to stay in their homes and maybe don’t have either the funds to pay for it privately or the family support or other needs from a care coordination perspective,” Conn said.

Services will include primary care; physical, occupational and speech therapy; social work and prescription updates and adjustments, she said.

Participants will generally come into the center twice a week, Conn said, adding that they can also socialize with friends and "battle social isolation" there.

The nonprofit is using $5.9 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds from Ohio to build the center and purchase other resources such as information technology and two vans with wheelchair lifts, Conn said.

McGregor PACE began leasing the space from Ohio Living in March, and the two nonprofits will operate the center together, Conn said.

Construction could begin as soon as April and finish by the end of 2024, then participants could be admitted in January 2025, she said.

PACE stands for Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly, which the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services states “provides comprehensive medical and social services to certain frail, community-dwelling elderly individuals, most of whom are dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid benefits.”

McGregor PACE was selected by the Ohio Department of Aging in December 2023 to expand into Summit County.

The new center could create 30 to 50 new jobs, Conn said. McGregor PACE will also work with vendors — home care agencies, hospital systems and transportation and meal providers.

The skilled nursing facility currently located on the first floor of the three-story building will move upstairs, Conn said.

Dave DiFrancesco, principal at Hiti, DiFrancesco and Siebold, the architectural firm working on the project, said “the PACE program is pretty unique in and of itself because it’s part senior center, part geriatric clinic. But what's really unique about this one is adapting the existing nursing home so that this new program fits and functions well within it. That made it a little bit more challenging."

With three existing McGregor PACE locations in Cuyahoga County — Ohio’s only operating PACE sites — the nonprofit is well-positioned to expand these types of services, Conn said. It will do so in Elyria, in Lorain County, in summer 2024, as it moves the Akron project forward.

Conn said the development timeline for PACE projects is usually two years, but participants in Summit and Lorain counties “don’t have to wait another year until they can access PACE services.”