Newton To Be Home To Memory Care Facility

NEWTON, MA – A nearly 200-year-old building not far from Newton Centre has been renovated and will soon be a 55,000-square-foot memory care community designed to support individuals with Alzheimer’s and dementia and their family members, according to a release.

The community, dubbed Adelaide of Newton Centre, will be the first dedicated memory care community in Newton, set on Hebrew College's former campus.

Last year, Hebrew College sold its Newton Centre campus for some $18 million to Newton-based Winthrop Park School Inc.. That year the land and property was assessed at $47,621,700. This year the assessed value was listed at $1,505,800, according to the city records. The college employed more than 150 and serving hundreds of students and said they still planned to stick around in some form.

While the property is still listed as belonging to the Winthrop Park School, at least one of the buildings - the 196-year-old Farwell Hall building at 157 Herrick Road - is now set to be home to as many as 61 residents.

Benchmark Senior Living LLC based out of Waltham employed Erland Construction to renovate the 20,000 square-foot building, and construct a 35,000 square-foot addition.

The new property contains 50 apartments with a capacity to serve 61 residents, interior and upper courtyards, plentiful gardens, three two-story skylights to draw in natural light, café, salon and spa and Elev8 Mind Studio.

“We are extremely proud of the finished product and understand how people’s quality of life will be dramatically improved by this new community,” said Eric Greene of Erland in a release. “Not only was fully renovating a 196-year old building challenging but the constraints we faced with the existing infrastructure posed a lot of opportunities for problem-solving as well.”

The company added two sets of stairs and an elevator, upgraded structural supports and seismic systems and installed new utilities and windows. The grand opening was set to happen this week, but it's not clear when residents will begin moving in.

Hebrew College To Sell Newton Campus | Newton, MA Patch