Assisted living center expanding

Woodlands of Findlay Assisted Living, on Findlay's east side, has broken ground on a $3 million, 35-room addition. The addition at the facility, at 600 Fox Run Road, could be completed by October, said Woodlands Administrator Kyle Purdy. Woodlands currently has 73 apartments. The new rooms will be studio-style, one-bedroom, and Medicaid-waiver approved, Purdy said. Each room will have a bathroom attached and a little kitchen area. The addition will have a dining room for residents. The additional will be on a single story. Seventeen parking spaces will be added at the Woodlands. The addition is a scaled-back version of a larger, two-story addition which Woodlands leaders had proposed. City officials said that original plan would have far exceeded what the city zoning ordinance would permit. Residential neighbors expressed multiple concerns, too: an expanded detention pond would be too close to them; a need for visual screening; a two-story addition would be inconsistent with the existing one-story Woodland structures; Woodlands would have insufficient parking, causing many vehicles to be parked on Fox Run Road. Findlay City Planning Commission tabled that plan, giving Woodlands leaders time to scale back the plans and address neighbors' concerns. The revisions to the plan were made, and then approved by the planning commission this past October. Woodlands is the former Fox Run Assisted Living, which, under its former owners, fell into financial trouble, lost its Medicaid certification and state license and was forced to close in 2023. Purdy and his wife, Nursing Director Sarah Buoy, had spent thousands of dollars of their own money to feed residents before the facility was closed. It was purchased in October 2023 by new owners Cornelius "Case" Vandervelde and his aunt, Anne Marie Vandervelde, and Case's father, Diederick Vandervelde. They brought Purdy and Buoy back and invested $1 million in renovations and reopened the assisted living center in 2024.