Nursing home to become charter school
Company plans $4 million renovation, hopes to enroll 300 in a kindergarten-to-third-grade school.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
DAYTON — A nursing and rehabilitation facility that closed last year has been sold and will be converted to a charter school.
The former Northwood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, 3650 Klepinger Road, was purchased March 24 for $1.65 million by Schoolhouse Finance, an Arlington, Va.-based charter school operator. The school will operate as Imagine Schools.
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Roy Swanson, regional director and principal, said Schoolhouse Finance plans to sink another $4 million into renovating the 55,000-square-foot facility before it opens for the 2008-2009 school year. The company has set an enrollment goal of 300 for the K-3 school, he said.
Depending on enrollment, the school will employ 20 to 25 teachers and staff, said Swanson, a former Dayton Public Schools teacher. There are more than 30 charter schools in Dayton.
Plans call for the building to be gutted and fitted for more than a dozen classrooms, he said.
Dennis Bakke, a former energy company executive, and Eileen Bakke, an educator, own and operate Schoolhouse Finance, according to its Web site. The company has schools in 11 states and the District of Columbia. In Ohio, the company has schools in Akron, Columbus, Cleveland, Groveport and Toledo.
Swanson, who has lived in Dayton for 30 years, joined Schoolhouse Finance in 2006 as principal of a school in Groveport. He will continue to oversee that school as well as a second planned for Groveport and the one in Dayton.
HRI Commercial Realty represented Milwaukee-based Extendicare Health Facilities Inc. in the transaction, said Dave Dickinson, HRI office manager, noting the facility was on the market about 10 months.
Extendicare closed Northwood Nursing in July because of low occupancy and problems with operations.
The company shuttered Northwood, which also had operated as Catalpa Manor, after the Ohio Department of Health suggested the federal government cease inspections of Northwood.
In 2006, Consumer Reports named Northwood Nursing one of the nation's 12 worst facilities.
Northwood was one of 12 homes nationally to make all five of Consumer Reports' watch lists between 2000 and 2005.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7317 or
ttresslar@DaytonDailyNews.com.
