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Assisted living facility will be first in Rogue River By MELISSA MARTIN ROGUE RIVER -- Construction will begin today on Morrow Heights, a 43-unit assisted living facility at 146 Wards Creek Road. An existing house will be torn down and the first retirement/assisted living facility in the Evans Valley area should be up and running by February. "We did a complete market study, including demographics, and identified there were a sufficient number of age- and income-qualified people in that area to construct a 43-unit building," said developer Don Maloy of Firstmark Group Inc. of Portland. The $2.6 million Morrow Heights will be a single-story, 27,000-square-foot craftsman-style building. It will include 400-square-foot studios and 600-square-foot, one-bedroom apartments; a dining room; an interior courtyard; a beauty salon and barber shop; a medical room; a therapy whirlpool and other features. A studio apartment will cost $1,695 a month, which includes meals, weekly housekeeping, utilities and apartment maintenance. A one-bedroom will cost $2,045 per month. Residents will pay for their own telephone and cable TV service. Morrow Heights will accept Medicaid payments, said Doug Sproul, director of marketing of Sunwest Management in Salem, which will operate the Rogue River facility. "It's the `aging place' concept," Sproul said. "Somebody could move in, remain active and independent, but still have help with their medications, for example. And when they need it, they can have help getting dressed or with bathing and meals, but they don't have to move to a different environment when that happens." Sunwest Management averages a 95 percent occupancy rate at the 19 assisted living facilities it operates in Oregon, Washington and Northern California, Sproul said. One of the facilities is in John Day, which has a similar population to Rogue River with 1,960 people. "What we've found is that a lot of developers don't look at small communities because they don't have large demographics," Sproul said. "But we've seen the need is just as great as in the metropolitan areas." Firstmark has another project, Spring Point, that is scheduled to go before the Grants Pass Planning Commission in September. Plans call for 56 secured units for Alzheimer's patients, 71 assisted-living apartments and 35 to 50 cottages for independent living. The location is the old drive-in theater site on Redwood Highway. Firstmark has completed 10 assisted living projects in the Pacific Northwest, including Jackson House, which opened on Suncrest Road in Talent three years ago, Maloy said. The firm has four projects under construction, including 64 assisted living apartments and 24 Alzheimer's units called Pelican Point in Klamath Falls. Rogue River's Morrow House will have the same design as Firstmark's project in Crescent City, Calif., the Addie Meedhom House, which opened last December. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA