Kokomo’s west side targeted for senior living facility

Jun. 13--The Kokomo City Plan Commission on Tuesday gave a favorable recommendation to a measure that could help allow a 20-unit senior living facility on the city's west side.

Plan commission members voted unanimously to send the favorable recommendation to the Kokomo Common Council for a rezoning at 3109 W. Sycamore St., a nearly 5-acre area targeted for a one-story facility planned to have 20 one-bedroom apartments.

Presenting the case was Paul Wyman, in his capacity as principal broker of the Wyman Group. Wyman is the project's realtor; the property is being sold by Ascension St. Vincent.

"It's a very unique senior living facility, meaning it's not an institutionalized one, meaning that the people will have their own private apartments but [also] common areas of living rooms and those sorts of things. And these folks will come and go to this senior living facility," said Wyman.

The Common Council will vote on the rezoning -- from office commercial to general multi-family residential -- at its June 24 meeting, according to council member Janie Young, who sits on the plan commission.

If the rezoning is approved, the project will later need site plan approval from the plan commission.

Wyman said the project is fully a private development constituting a roughly $2.5 million investment. He has not revealed the private developer except to call them "local."

The facility would create around 15 jobs, he noted.

"The reality of this senior living facility is they will be providing this place to live all the way up to the first stages of when they would need assisted living," said Wyman, noting residents will be provided transportation but can also have their own vehicles.

"So it really is a true senior living facility."

Wyman credited the land targeted for the development, in part for its tree-heavy aesthetic, but also for what already surrounds it. Just east of the land is Kokomo Place, another assisted living community, and Golden Living Center-Sycamore Village, a nursing facility.

"The other beauty of it for the residents that live here is the west side of Kokomo," he noted.

"So these folks who are living in senior living will have access to a hospital, medical, pharmacy, grocery, retail, all of that right there on the west side, and very convenient to the people that will be living here."

BeeHive Homes -- which says on its website that it offers "long-term and respite care that combines housing, assistance with daily activities, and health care services as needed" -- will be a franchise to the local developer, who will run the facility, noted Wyman.

George Myers can be reached at 765-454-8585, by email at [email protected] or on Twitter @gmyerskt.

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