$14M new community center focuses on healthy living

The leaders of a senior living campus in Doylestown marked the opening of a new community center.

Pine Run Retirement Community, owned by Doylestown Health, completed the $14 million project that involved building a new community center in two phases after a groundbreaking in spring 2017.

The two-story, 37,000-square-foot building includes a pool, fitness center and bar and grill, with all amenities open to both the retirement community and the Pine Run staff, which is 600 employees, said Maria Santangelo, executive director at Pine Run.

The first phase of construction included three indoor and two outdoor dining galleries overlooking the pond as well as a café. The second phase included an expanded fitness center with new equipment, space for classes, an indoor pool and a 175-seat auditorium. In addition, the center has a library, computer nook, living room with fireplace, a hair and nail salon and a country store.

Designed by AG Architecture of Wisconsin and built by Gorski Engineering of Collegeville, the center uses environmentally friendly green materials to reduce energy costs. The site incorporates a rain garden with plantings, a greenhouse, and a pond with new landscaping.

“We could not take our old building down because it had a dining venue,” Santangelo said. “Once that was completed, we were able to knock down our old venue and build new.”

The Pine Run Community Center is also open to the outside community for catered events, she added.

“Healthy living is the overreaching thought, using those resources to promote healthy living,” Santangelo said. “We built this building with the understanding that we would become the destination for senior living. The way to do that is to provide amenities they need and expect.”

These include upscale dining, fitness, and life enrichment activities, she said.

Pine Run offers a continuum of care setting. The organization has 106 residents in personal care, 90 in skilled nursing, 40 residents in memory care and 342 in independent living, she said.

Part of the funding for the community center came from Pine Run’s One Vision Campaign, a fundraiser that seeks to raise $75 million by 2023. So far, the organization raised a little more than $60 million, she said.

The majority of the funding for the community center came from Doylestown Hospital, Santangelo said.

Two other new nearby Doylestown Health construction projects are nearing completion. One project is the Cardiovascular and Critical Care Pavilion, housing the Woodall Center for Heart and Vascular Care. Ron Watson, spokesperson for Doylestown Health System, said the hospital would start moving patients to the cardiovascular floor on Jan. 2.

The other project is the Ambulatory Center on the health system’s flagship campus, with its same-day surgery center, orthopedic offices and rehabilitation facilities, which will be finished in summer 2020, he said.