Photo Photo By Ellie Van Houtte/Town Crier

Construction continues at The Terraces at Los Altos. The memory-care building will feature 16 units.

Representatives of The Terraces at Los Altos are eyeing an early summer finish for the first of a three-phase, $100 million construction project.

Teri Conklin – vice president of sales and marketing for Seniority Inc., a subsidiary of the community’s parent company, American Baptist Homes of the West (ABHOW) – told the Town Crier that officials are anticipating the completion of a new 16-unit memory-care facility and a 30-unit skilled-nursing building sometime in June. In February, ABHOW announced that it received $71 million in financing through a bond issue, with the vast majority of it earmarked for the Los Altos project.

Still, Conklin said plenty of work remains on the expansion of the Pine Lane community, formerly known as Pilgrim Haven, which received Los Altos City Council approval in 2009.

“We’ve had a lot of good support from all of our residents, but it’s been a long journey,” said Conklin, noting that the company is approaching the one-year anniversary of its official groundbreaking ceremony. “In the past year, it’s been nice to see this project come to life.”

A tight timeline

Overall, Conklin said, ABHOW aims to provide a well-rounded slate of options for local seniors with the community’s expansion. That includes The Village – the community’s skilled-nursing facility – as well as The Grove, the community’s new memory-care unit, which will provide care for individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of memory loss.

The Grove, she noted, will use ABHOW’s “Best Friends Approach” memory support program, emphasizing safety, relationship-building and memory stimulation techniques.

“Our philosophy is that we focus on our residents’ abilities versus their inabilities. … We have to be in the moment with them, even if it is a long-held memory,” she said. “We spend a lot of time getting to know them and their families so that we can connect with them.”

Conklin said construction remains on a “very tight timeline,” pointing to the company’s 36-month construction window as part of the council’s approval for the project.

Once the project’s first phase wraps later this summer, she added, construction will have to continue without skipping a beat. After transitioning residents to the new completed buildings, crews will raze the community’s current health center building to start the remaining two phases of construction.

Among other things, the remaining phases at The Terraces call for 17 new assisted-living units – offered as studios and one-bedroom apartments – as well as 81 new one- and two-bedroom residential apartments. Nearly 75 percent of those new 81 units – 59 – have already been reserved, Conklin noted.

Coupled with existing residences on the site, the community will eventually boast a total of 30 assisted-living and 105 residential homes, including 16 below-market-rate units.

“There is very little choice in Los Altos by its nature as an established community,” Conklin said. “So if someone wants to stay in the community, there are not a lot of choices available to them. … We’re really excited to develop and provide this.”

Despite the remaining work, Conklin said company officials remain confident the project will be completed by summer 2015.

“There’s really no break,” she said with a chuckle. “We just have to keep moving along.”

For more information, visit www.theterracesatlosaltos.com.

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