The executive director of Queens Manor says while people may not see shovels in the ground, there's lots of work going on behind the scenes in preparation to build the new long-term care home in Queens.

Andrew MacVicar says the design team of architects and engineers are meeting regularly with staff and frontline workers to ensure the new facility feels like home to the people living there. The new home will have 112 bed capacity divided into groupings of 12 to 16 residents called resident neighbourhoods.

MacVicar says placing residents together in smaller numbers allow them to get to know each other just as they do in any other neighbourhood. He says whenever a new design idea is brought forward it is measured against a very simple standard.

“It's a resident-centred philosophy so everything we do in our design meetings, the questions we're asking are: how does this benefit our residents, how does this create a homelike environment and then again, the very next question is how does it benefit our staff and how does it allow our staff to be the best they can be?” said MacVicar. “Because if the staff aren’t at their best that is a direct impact on resident care.”

The team behind the development have traveled to three other long term care homes across Nova Scotia which already have some of the design elements they're considering in place.

MacVicar says some of the design elements they plan to incorporate from these conversations include an open kitchen so residents and staff can connect with each other as you would at home.

Staff also suggested allowing more sunlight into the building so the home doesn't feel closed off.

MacVicar says one of the most important suggestions was to place the new facility in the heart of the community which is how the decision was made to build at Queens Place.

“Isolating seniors is not a good idea. And you want your seniors to look out their window and see the community that they lived in that they still live in,” said MacVicar. “They want to see people that they know going to hockey games and they want to see parents with their kids at the skate park and they want to see, believe it or not, they want to see the trucks on the 103. They want to see cars, they want to see movement, they want to see action.”

Queens’ new long-term care home is scheduled to open in early 2026. MacVicar understands there is a lot of anticipation from the community around the new building and the planning team is keen to give everyone a look once the design plans are finalized.

“We’re excited to share. We're really excited about this project; we're really excited about the design. We can't wait to open it; we want to share it with the community.”

MacVicar hopes people will begin to see some activity on the site later this year.

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