Good Samaritan
Society
Founder's
Crossing
Following a recent merger of Sanford Health and The Good Samaritan Lutheran Society, RDG was hired to serve as their architect for a new, life plan community near their system headquarters in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. This new life plan community involves a blend of entrance fee housing with rental, apartment models to reach a broad and diverse market socially and economically. This diversity is enhanced by the variety of residential scale in the housing options, ranging from single family housing and duplex/triplex models in a single story configuration to mid-rise apartment-style housing.
This 45-acre campus is designed to include 163 IL units in twin/tri homes, 124 units of IL apartments, 32 units of AL apartments, 32 units of AL Memory Care apartments and 120 beds of skilled nursing for short-term rehab and long-term care. The independent living apartments are designed above a structured, podium parking element. Except for the lower-density twin/tri homes, all housing and care components within this life plan community are connected to a common area of amenities.
The common area amenities are connected to two healthcare components owned and operated by Sanford Health. A health clinic is being designed by Sanford and will be directly accessible to the Good Sam Life Plan residents. In addition to the clinic, an expanded service pharmacy will also be attached to the life plan community. This pharmacy will serve the Founder's Crossing campus as well as the greater Sioux Falls community.
The initial design of the primary culinary/kitchen center for this campus was expanded and enhanced to include sous vide cooking methods. This strategy will allow the culinary operations of this campus to support the other Good Sam communities in the local area. This sous vide approach is a technology solution in response to staffing challenges, while enhancing food quality and the residents' culinary experiences.
The complexity of housing and health care components on this campus involved multiple architects and building contractors through a CM (construction manager) at Risk delivery approach. The construction manager was at the planning and design table early in the process to provide constructability insight and cost control strategies for the design team and the owner.