Peggy Kelley, a resident of Queens Manor, and Bertha Goodwin, a resident of Hillsview Acres, unveil the name of the new long-term care facility in Queens County. (Rick Conrad)

UPDATED FRIDAY AT 3:45 P.M.

The new long-term care facility in Liverpool now has a name.

The 112-bed nursing home will be called The Neighbourhoods of Dogwood Lane.

About 50 people turned out for the name unveiling on Friday morning at the Best Western Plus in Liverpool, including Queens MLA Kim Masland, Region of Queens Mayor Scott Christian, regional councillors and some senior municipal staff. There were also residents there from the privately run Queens Manor and the municipally owned Hillsview Acres in Greenfield.

The new $108-million home combines those two facilities.

Andrew MacVicar, executive director of Queens Manor, told the crowd that they received 208 submissions from the community in the naming campaign that began in September.

“We wanted a name that reflected a new beginning and a fresh start,” he said.

“We knew the final name needed to come from the community because this home truly belongs to the community.”

He said the name reflects the new standard in long-term care design of a neighbourhood or household model.

“Smaller households of 12 to 16 residents help create a warm, less institutional environment, one that supports comfort, dignity and a true sense of home. In our new home, we will have four neighbourhoods, each made of two households, for a total of eight households. These neighbourhoods are connected by a central lane that every visitor will walk along to reach their loved one’s household.

“That central lane, beginning right at our front door, will be Dogwood Lane. So, they’re all connected in a way. And I think we can all agree that the dogwood tree has really become a symbol of Queens County.”

Those dogwood trees flourish every spring throughout Queens County. The man who helped bring them to the area in 2000 when he was mayor was Christopher Clarke, who is the chair of the Queens Home for Special Care (the Manor).

He said the new long-term care home represents the biggest construction project in Queens County in the past 50 years. 

“It’s a great step forward. It means a lot to me because I’ve been associated with dogwoods in Queens County for a long time and I never thought this snowball would have gathered in momentum and kept growing in size, so it’s great.”

The Neighbourhoods of Dogwood Lane will also add 22 new beds to long-term care in Queens.

All bedrooms in the new facility will be single occupancy with private bathrooms. And each room will have ceiling lifts that extend to the bathroom, to make it easier for staff to help mobility-impaired residents move around their room. The province funds those devices in only 24 rooms. 

So, the facility’s board is launching a $4-million fundraising campaign for the rest. Clarke said they’re already getting donations.

“It’s going very well. We’ve had some big donations and we’re reaching a point now where we’re looking for the community to make donations. As they say, no donation is too small. Everybody who makes a donation will be recognized on a board in the facility when it opens.”

Queens Manor’s oldest female resident Peggy Kelley helped to unveil the new name on Friday. The 95-year-old said she’s looking forward to being in the new home next year.

“I think it’s going to be nice to have bigger rooms. I’m actually in a private room. But with the wheelchair, (the room) is quite small and very hard to get around in, but the new ones are going to be bigger and we’re going to have our own bathroom. It’s nice, you don’t have to wait for somebody else.

“It’s going to be nice to be there and it’s such a beautiful looking building.”

Masland, who is also Nova Scotia’s minister of natural resources and minister of emergency management, said the province wants to keep people closer to their homes longer. And the new Dogwood Lane facility in Liverpool will help make that happen.

“From a perspective of single beds, single rooms, that’s always been something that’s been very important to me. You know, my grandmother was in Queens Manor, and when she was passing, there was someone beside her that was very ill, that it was very difficult for us as a family not to have that time with her. So I think those single rooms are so important for privacy for our seniors.”

MacVicar said the project is still on track to be finished in the fall of 2026. Depending on final inspections, residents may be in the new facility before Christmas 2026 or in early 2027, he said.

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

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Andrew MacVicar is the executive director of Queens Manor Home for Special Care in Liverpool. (Rick Conrad)

As the new long-term care home in Liverpool takes shape, Queens Manor executive director Andrew MacVicar says the years of planning are paying off.

“Walking into the building and seeing it in 3D and seeing it unfolding, it’s pretty rewarding,” he told QCCR in a recent interview.

“It’s just really exciting to see it coming alive and it’s also really rewarding to see design elements that we spent a long time thinking about and now seeing that we were right.”

The new 112-bed facility will replace Queens County’s two existing homes – the privately run Queens Manor and the municipally owned Hillsview Acres in Greenfield. Located across from Queens Place Emera Centre, it will add 22 long-term care beds in Queens County.

“Anybody that’s driven by can see that we’re moving really quickly. It’s an 11-step process and I believe we’re at Step 9. The external envelope is up. You can clearly see bedrooms taking shape, dining rooms taking shape.”

Construction began on the $100-million complex in November 2023, after two years of intensive planning and design consultations with residents, families, staff and the community.

“I have to say the first couple of years were really labour intensive because you have one chance to design the right building,” MacVicar says.

“So we spent a lot of time asking a lot of questions about what we don’t like about our existing buildings, where we see the future of how we deliver care. We always ask the question, ‘Is this idea, this design idea, is it friendly to our staff?’”

Queens Manor shared this photo on its Facebook page of the progress of the new long-term care home in Liverpool. (Queens Manor Facebook page)

All bedrooms in the new manor will be single occupancy with private bathrooms. And each room will also have ceiling lifts that extend to the bathroom, which will make it easier for staff to help residents with mobility issues move anywhere in their room or bathroom.

“It enhances dignity for our residents, but it also enhances safety for our staff. So some lifts that may have been one- or two-person assist can be done by one person. And so it frees up staff, it prevents workplace injuries. It’s a real enhancement to our facility that you won’t see in others.”

MacVicar says that’s only one of many improvements over existing facilities. 

From better multi-use spaces to help with infection control to something as seemingly simple as how the complex is oriented on the site, he said it was important to emphasize the dignity and safety of residents and staff alike in the design.

“There are two elements to providing care – the people and there’s the environment, your infrastructure,” he said.

“Our people provide excellent care, they demonstrate excellence every day, but our building hasn’t matched that. I think you’ll see a building that is friendly to its staff, which in turn means that it just enhances their ability to provide excellent care. Residents will have more privacy, more dignity. Spaces will be bright. It will be very difficult for you to find a space in that facility that doesn’t have a window. And it is a facility and institution that does not feel like a facility or an institution. It will feel like a home.”

He said staff and the design team spent a lot of time investigating what worked at newer facilities elsewhere in the province and talking to people at those facilities to see what they would improve if they could.

“So to address the future, we looked backwards a bit to some of the facilities that have already been built and we used these visits as an opportunity to test our ideas to see if what looks good on paper actually works in practice.”

MacVicar said it was also important to choose a new location that would make the manor visible to the whole community.

“So there was a shift towards a location that would take our residents and embed into the centre of the community rather than what I call warehousing seniors on a hill out of sight, out of mind. And when your community is forced to look at your long-term care facility every day it prevents them from being forgotten, which I think quite clearly this location will prevent that from happening.”

Construction is on track for residents to move in sometime in the fall of 2026. 

Before that, though, the new facility needs a new name. 

“We want to make sure our new home captures the legacy of both organizations but we also want to make sure we come together under a new brand, a new name.”

MacVicar said the community will have a chance during a naming campaign this fall to give their input on what the new long-term care home in Queens County will be called.

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

Listen to the audio version of this story below