Friendship Village Construction Manager uses Lifetime of Experience with Seniors to Create Homelike Atmosphere in New State-of-the-Art Building
Assisted Living and Memory Care to Open in September in Chesterfield
For Jill Frein, construction project manager for Friendship Village, September 8 will be a big day to celebrate. After more than a year of construction, she and her team will open the doors to one of the most inviting and advanced assisted living and memory care buildings in the St. Louis area. The West County Friendship Village senior living campus is located at 15250 Village View Drive in Chesterfield. Private tours can be scheduled now for the grand opening week of September 8-12 by calling 636-242-5039.
Seniors who are looking for care while wanting to remain as independent as possible will appreciate living in this specially designed community which includes private apartments for all residents. And their loved ones will feel a sense of relief knowing they’re safe and receiving the highest quality care in a beautiful, homelike setting. With engaging community activities and a park-like campus, the community sits adjacent to Faust Park and the Butterfly House, conveniently located in West County.
“Residents moving in will be so happy to have private apartments, especially from a COVID-19 safety perspective,” says Frein, who engaged both residents and staff in the process of developing the new building. The 60-apartment building is part of a five-year, $200 million construction project across Friendship Village’s Chesterfield and Sunset Hills campuses. The project includes new independent living apartments, purpose-built assisted living and memory care buildings and new, world-class skilled nursing buildings. And Jill Frein has been at the forefront the entire time, managing the project.
“I wanted residents and staff to provide their perspectives from the beginning,” says Frein. “Friendship Village is a very involved community and our residents always have a sense of independence and choice in what they want to do.”
Frein and her design team spent months surveying residents and engaging program staff to develop purpose-built assisted living and memory care facilities and amenities that are designed specifically for them. Built in consultation with Friendship Villages’ new Montessori-certified memory care specialists and assisted living care teams, the buildings are designed to support programs that help residents enhance and extend their vibrant quality of life. Flooring, lighting, surfaces, floor plans, dining — everything is designed around best practices found throughout the assisted living and memory care profession.
“We’ve done our best to take care of everything our residents could need and what their families could want,” says Frein.
Frein and the team worked for over a year before construction broke ground, using special software to help determine how to deliver both large and small features that together add up to a place seniors will want to call home. For example, they changed the way the heating and air conditioning were configured, freeing up space in the apartments and reducing how frequently staff need to access residents’ apartments to do work.
“Our goal is to make it as seamless as possible to move to assisted living or memory care at Friendship Village,” says Frein. “Imagine your new home with a gym, activity kitchen, beauty salon and spa with manicures and pedicures, beautiful fireplaces, an outdoor pergola, walking paths and lots of places to visit privately with family. It’s truly designed for the residents and for the staff to enjoy for years to come.”
Frein, who has been working with seniors from an early age, remembers growing up in Northwest Iowa tending to elderly neighbors’ yards and gardens when they could no longer do it themselves.
“My dad instilled in me a sense of service to the widows in our small town. We’d mow their lawns, weed their gardens and pick their vegetables for them. It was just what we did to help them out. I love the fact that I’m still working with seniors to this day. They have so many beautiful stories. It’s a real blessing to be able to be there for them,” says Frein.
Frein continues to take care of seniors in all the large and small ways she’s overseeing the design, construction and features of the new assisted living building. From the intimate seating areas inside and outside the building, allowing a private space to sit and relax or visit with friends, to the attention to lighting and flooring selections that are attractive, yet safety minded, every detail is carefully considered.
“With an aging population, you can never have too much light, but it has to be the right kind of light and be dimmable for those who may have light sensitivity. But good lighting cuts down on the chance of falls, so it’s an important safety feature,” says Frein. “It’s the same with flooring; no dark or shiny floors, since people with dementia can be apprehensive to walk on them and may fear falling.”
As the September 8 -12 Grand Opening week gets closer, crews are putting the finishing touches inside and outside the building. And Frein continues to oversee the large and small details of the project while remaining open to input from staff and residents, always with an eye toward making the building perfect.
Says Frein, “We know it’s emotional to move to a new place. We’re very focused on making this building just right for them. We want Friendship Village to become their home and we want to make the transition as easy as possible.”
For those interested in moving to the community, private tours of the new assisted living and memory care building are being scheduled now. Please call 636-242-5039 today or visit the website at www.FriendshipVillageSTL.com/assisted-living/chesterfield.
Photo Captions:
- Jill Frein, Construction Project Manager for Friendship Village, outside the new assisted living and memory care building on Friendship Village’s Chesterfield campus.
- An exterior view of the new Friendship Village assisted living and memory care building, as landscaping begins.
- The beauty salon begins to take shape during construction of Friendship Village’s new assisted living and memory care building on its Chesterfield campus.
Photo credit: Steve Nagy
Friendship Village Senior Services is a faith-based, not-for-profit organization devoted to providing a full range of senior living options. As the only provider of the Life Care program in the St. Louis metro area, Friendship Village guarantees residents access to all levels of health care—all on one campus—at a predictable cost for life. Friendship Village continually invests in wellness programs and technology to keep residents living well and independent, longer. From independent living, to assisted living, memory care, skilled nursing and in-home care, Friendship Village continues to build the future of senior living.
Friendship Village at Home brings the extensive experience and quality care of Friendship Village services to the homes of area seniors and includes Medicare home health and private duty care. Our mission-driven board of directors and highly experienced staff encourage a culture of friendship and loving care through the highest quality services and a focus on residents’ spiritual, emotional, physical and social wellbeing. For more information about Friendship Village Senior Services please visit www.FriendshipVillageSTL.com.