Gillespie Center

The Gillespie Center was developed to provide a gathering place for members of the community, families, civic organizations, and other area groups. The Senior community as well as the larger community use this facility for special events, meetings, cultural activities, educational programs and a wide variety of other social and recreational activities. Yanik assisted the City of Mound and the Mound Senior Federation with project planning, design, and real estate acquisition, cost estimates and analysis, construction, and financial planning. 

The Gillespie Center receives no public funding to support the facility or the programs it provides to the community. User event fees offset operating expenses & help to ensure delivery of seniors services to the entire community.

Multiple rooms of varied sizes and configurations accommodate meetings or gatherings of large and small groups. The focal point of The Gillespie Center is the Reception Hall and dining area. This large gathering area accommodates up to 300 people. It features large windows and a deck on the east side which provides a spectacular view of the natural marshland area of historic Lost Lake. A dance floor and state of the art sound and video system opens the room to many possible events.

The other conference and reception rooms can comfortably accommodate groups of 6 to 50 people and food service or kitchen use is immediately accessible.

St. Michaels has memory care residents streamlined within the general residents, therapy for transitional care guests do not have access to an outdate therapy area, no identifiable town center with common spaces dispersed throughout the building and no neighborhood dining with culinary services occurring in one large dining hall. Resident rooms are very narrow which impedes quality care and have no private toilet space. Yanik reviewed the conditions with staff and provided several options for the facility to consider which includes separating the kitchen, dining and living areas into smaller spaces, several rooms renovation options and adding a small building for 8 new rooms. Yanik provided preliminary cost estimates against these options for the facility to consider.

Yanik also performed a similar analysis of an existing senior care building at the Northern Pines Care Center in Aurora, MN. This Iron Range skilled nursing facility of two wings is an addition to the Northern Pines Medical Center and includes mostly double rooms with no toilet, shower or sink area. The facility would de-certify the skilled beds to enhanced assisted living with newly designated neighborhood areas that include kitchen/dining/ living. Several preliminary budgets were generated and reviewed with the facility.