Groundbreaking signals start of a new era at Northport Highlands retirement community.

Northport resident Virginia Thomas isn't ready to move in today, but she likes the thought of having an assisted living facility built down the road - just in case.

Her immediate concerns that the local economy will get back on its feet, and a popular pool and fitness center will reopen quickly, are shared by Northport residents regardless of age.

PROJECT PARTNER Chuck Hall points to drawings
of the Northport Highlands during a ceremony
Tuesday morning in the former Leelanau Memorial
Hospital emergency care center.

“I hope people will be supportive and commit themselves to living here,” she said while attending a groundbreaking ceremony held Tuesday for Northport Highlands.

Project partners Chuck Hall and Michael McCarthy offered assurances at the ceremony that, indeed, the Warm pool and fitness center would reopen in three months.

“We know it has been difficult without (the pool and fitness center), and we’re working on getting that back and running,” said Hall. He unveiled a vigorous construction schedule calling for completion of a memory care and assisted living complex offering 41 units within one year.

And as far as jump-starting the Northport economy, Northport Highlands promises to be a $20 million project once fully built out, McCarthy said. Also planned: 56 condominium units, with 38 located in a four-story complex to be built where the former emergency services center and main entrance to the hospital are now located.

MICHAEL McCARTHY, who along with
Chuck Hall is one of the partners in the
Northport Highlands development, is
shown at Tuesday’s event announcing
that work was beginning on the project.

But residents have seen plans come and go for the former Leelanau Memorial Hospital site. Perhaps most soothing to them is word that the two partners in the project have long family ties to Leelanau County, and are taking on a steadfast approach in converting the former hospital site into a mecca for older residents to live out their lives.

Leelanau Memorial was run locally as a non-profit hospital after being built through donations and fundraisers. The Northport graduating class of 1953 donated $700 – which was originally raised to have fun on its “senior skip day” – toward the work; the hospital was built in 1957.

However, concerns over the hospital’s economic feasibility prompted its board of directors to turn over the hospital to Munson Healthcare in the late 1990s. Munson announced in April 2004 that it was closing the hospital, and had sold rights to 64 beds licensed for “skilled nursing” care by the state of Michigan to Tendercare, Inc., Tendercare later built a new facility in Suttons Bay, and transferred the beds there.

The lights went out in the former hospital on Dec. 31, 2005, with no sure future in sight.

By then Hall and McCarthy had struck up a cordial friendship, having met in the Chicago area after learning that they had something in common: Leelanau County.

McCarthy’s father was Dr. Martin McCarthy, who bought a farm on South Manitou Island in the 1960s that he eventually sold to the National Park Service. Dr. McCarthy, who died 11 years ago, later bought an 120-acre cherry farm near Northport that remains in the family while being run by Elmer and Steve Kalchik.

THE EAST and west elevations of the Northport Highlands assisted living and memory care facility.

Chuck Hall’s wife, Molly, is the daughter of Jean and Jerry Muir of Leland. The family’s ties to the Leland area go back generations. The Halls own a construction company.

The two had followed the plight of Leelanau Memorial Hospital through news reports in the Leelanau Enterprise, and decided to respond to a “request for proposals.” A committee of Northport residents, worried about having five buildings encompassing more than 67,000 square feet abandoned, was leading the effort to find suitors who would benefit the community.

McCarthy’s background seemed a perfect fit for the former hospital site. He started working for Parkside Senior Services in Illinois in 1980, when the senior center was part of the non-profit Lutheran General Health System. He purchased Parkside in 1993, and converted it into a for-profit operation.

“That was 15 years ago, and I haven’t looked back since,” said McCarthy.

Eventually his corporations owned seven senior living facilities spread across the country, and
was a third party in 125 facilities. In 2005, about the time he and Hall were submitting proposals for the purchase of the Leelanau Memorial site, McCarthy sold his business assets elsewhere.

So why the delay between submitting their proposal and the groundbreaking?

One reason was that Northport Highlands did not acquire title to the property until April 2007 — long after community members had been told of the impending sale.

But even before then, a tightening credit market and local politics had come into the picture.

Northport Highlands eventually turned to HUD for a $5,346,000 loan to begin the assisted living and memory care phase of the project. It’s a figure McCarthy easily recites from memory.

Taking part in the groundbreaking ceremony
were Northport officials and representatives
of the Highlands project.

And despite a positive relationship with Northport Village, which approved zoning changes needed for the project “the fastest I’ve ever had done,” McCarthy said, there were doubts as to the project’s future when protests mounted against the municipal sewer system and petitions were filed to recall the Village Council.

“I think there was skepticism as to whether the sewer system would go, and if the recall would occur,” McCarthy said. The sewer was essential to the project, he said, and is nearly complete. The recall attempt failed.

Work should move along in a hurry on the memory care and assisted living portion of the project, as subcontractors for DeVere Construction have already started gutting out the existing two-story, brick building. Alpena-based DeVere has been busy in Leelanau County, having built the county law enforcement center and new courthouse, as well as being the contractor for the sewer project.

Memory Care units will be located on the first floor with the pool and fitness center; assisted living on the second.

Northport Highlands early on established a working relationship with the non-profit
organization ShareCare of Leelanau, which through donations and volunteers strives to keep older residents independent and in their homes as long as possible. In fact, ShareCare continues to be provided an office free of charge in the former emergency care center owned by Northport Highlands.

Twelve of 56 condominium units have been sold. McCarthy said once 60 percent of condos have reserved, construction will begin on the second phase of Northport Highlands.

Condo prices start at $250,000 for one-bedroom units in the 4-story complex that will be built at the former entrance to the hospital. Many have spectacular views of Northport and Grand Traverse bays.

“Villas” for sale in duplexes to be built nearby on the Northport Highlands campus start at $477,000.

The groundbreaking was needed, according to assistant director of sales Beth E. Nunnelley, to show interested clients that, indeed, the project was a “go.”

“It was very important to have this groundbreaking. The activity has definitely escalated already,” Nunnelley said.

Sally Coohon, president of the Northport/Omena Chamber of Commerce, was likewise glad to see construction activity. She now has a better answer for visitors to her Dolls and More store who ask, “What’s going on up on the hill?”

But she also sees the groundbreaking as a continuation of a community makeover that includes the controversial municipal sewer system and a project undertaken by Michigan State University that drew a crowd of nearly 100 residents offering input into a visioning session.

“The whole past year has been very exciting … it’s been wonderful to see people set goals and follow them with their vision,” she said.