New name, management firm for NuVista Living in Wellington

May 16-- May 16--NuVista Living in Wellington, the rehabilitation center that sometimes had trouble paying employees on time, has a new operator and a new name.

KR Management is the facility's new management company. The rehab and senior living facility now is known as The Addington at Wellington Green. The facility is west of State Road 7, just south of the Mall at Wellington Green.

It's a fresh start for the center, its patients and its workers.

Phil Kelsey, KR Management's chief operating officer, called the staff "a tremendous group of employees who have gone through some challenges. But they are absolutely wonderful, and we are impressed with their commitment to each other and to the residents."

KR Management, based in Indian Shores, manages six other rehab and assisted living facilities around the state. This is its first facility in South Florida.

It may not be its only opportunity.

Efforts remain ongoing to open the $75 million Institute for Healthy Living in Jupiter, a luxury senior living facility built by the same people who built NuVista Living in Wellington. The Institute, on the east side of Central Boulevard just north of Donald Ross Road, is built but not open because it doesn't have agreements with research facilities, as required by the town.

KR Management may manage the Institute if it ever opens, but KR's focus right now is on NuVista Living in Wellington.

NuVista Living was the subject of a Palm Beach Post investigation last year that found employees were experiencing late paychecks and bounced checks. In 2018, the state's Agency for Health Care Administration began probing the facility, which was operated by health care mogul Elizabeth Fago and her son, Paul Walczak. The state agency's probe centered on NuVista's "financial ability to operate," as well as payroll and compensation issues, according to an agency spokeswoman.

The May 2018 Post investigation found that a payroll company owned by Fago and Walczak owed $8.3 million to the IRS for back payroll taxes, according to liens filed with the Palm Beach County clerk's office. That figure now is more than $10 million, according to the clerk's office.

Fago and Walczak mostly blamed changes in Medicare reimbursements for their money problems.

KR Management quietly began operating NuVista on February 15 after the property's owner, ARHC NVWELFL101, a unit of New York-based AR-Global, filed a lawsuit. ARHC asked a federal court judge to kick NuVista's parent company out, as well as make the company pay more than $5 million in back rent.

In February, U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks ordered NuVista's parent company, Chatsworth at Wellington Green, to pay $8.9 million in back rent, late charges and taxes. He also ordered KR Management in as operator and directed Chatsworth to immediately transition operations to KR.

The changeover, at least in regard to paperwork, has not been smooth.

In court records, ARHC and Chatsworth have gone back and forth about transferring documents, bank accounts and insurance policies.

The transition has become acrimonious, as ARHC has sought to have Chatsworth sanctioned for contempt. ARHC alleges Chatsworth hasn't complied with the court's orders to provide all necessary records to KR Management, claims that Chatsworth is challenging.

In an interview, Kelsey sidestepped these problems calling them "legal issues" being handled by ARHC. "All transitions have challenges," Kelsey said.

Kelsey acknowledged that KR's job has been not only to ensure patient care but also to mend fences with hospitals and other medical providers that refer patients to NuVista, as well as vendors who sometimes had been paid late. "We are working through those processes," Kelsey said. "We've been in business for 18 years and know a lot of vendors."

The state approved a license change to KR Management effective April 1. Robert Campion, who led NuVista Living under Fago and Walczak, is staying on as executive director.

Kelsey said the facility has about 350 employees, 120 beds in its post-acute rehabilitation center and 52 beds in an assisted living facility.

KR could be tapped to run the Institute for Healthy Living, which remains built but unopened, pending approval by the town of Jupiter.

The Institute, first proposed in 2010 by Fago and Walczak, was seen as a bid to capture returns on the state's investment in the Scripps Research Institute by blending research and academia with health care. Affiliations with Scripps Florida and Jupiter Medical Center were touted in the project's approval process.

The Institute features a 129-bed nursing home, a 62-bed assisted living facility and a 30-bed center for people with brain disorders. It also features 22,000 square feet of space for clinical research that will give scientists access to the facility's patients.

In 2015, Fago and Walczak sold the Institute to AR-Global, the same company that owns the Wellington facility. Fago and Walczak retained the right to operate the Institute. They also oversaw construction, which went on for years.

But relations between the Institute, Scripps and Jupiter Medical faltered a year ago. In 2018, both Scripps and Jupiter Medical wrote NuVista and Walczak letters informing them they had cut ties with the Institute.

That created a problem for AR-Global. The research ties were a condition of the Institute's certificate of occupancy, which allows the facility to open.

Late last year, AR Global officials asked Jupiter's planning and zoning commission for permission to open without the required research component. The request was shot down.

As a result, AR-Global is on the hunt for other research tenants.

Commercial Florida Realty Services is actively marketing the facility's 22,000 square feet of clinical and medical research space. There's fresh interest in the site, according to Commercial Florida's Peter Reed, but he did not name the potential tenants.

Jupiter Mayor Todd Wodraska said he's often asked about the Institute.

He said he's waiting on AR-Global, but he warned the company needs to stick to the original plan.

"They made a bunch of promises of things that would be delivered to the community, none of which has happened, except construction of the building," Wodraska said.

Alexandra Clough writes about real estate, law and the economy.

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