Retirement community starts $79M expansion

CAPE CORAL — Gulf Coast Village is redeveloping its continuing care retirement community, a project that includes building a new assisted living facility.

Financed with $79 million in bonds, Gulf Coast Village has started construction of a 130,980-square-foot assisted living and memory care facility called Palmview. It's at 1333 Santa Barbara Blvd. in Cape Coral.

“The groundbreaking of our new assisted living and memory care residence at Gulf Coast Village marks the beginning of an exciting three-phase redevelopment project expanding our community to meet the growing needs of seniors,” says Kevin Ahmadi, executive director of Gulf Coast Village, in a statement.

Palmview will add 34 new assisted living and 24 memory care residences. It is the first of a three-phase health care redevelopment project at Gulf Coast Village that also includes the addition of 20 nursing suites and the conversion of existing semi-private nursing suites to private suites, for a total of 79 private suites.

Palmview is scheduled to open in March 2017. AG Architecture of Wauwatosa, Wisc., is Palmview's architectural firm and Lecesse Construction Services of West Henrietta, N.Y., is the contractor.