It’s Official – The Preserve is Open!

We are thrilled to announce the official opening of The Preserve! Our first residents have arrived and are feeling settled in and learning the lay of the land in their beautiful new home. The excitement from when we first broke ground to now has grown exponentially and we are bursting at the seams with pride and joy as we open the doors to life at The Preserve.

The Preserve offers an intimate, boutique-style setting, providing a continuum of care and personalized services all delivered with exceptional hospitality. Residents can rest assured that as health needs change, additional care is available on site. The Preserve offers various living options keeping transition in mind:

As mentioned above, The Preserve offers skilled rehabilitation therapies in a hotel-style setting. Transitioning the gap between hospital and home for adults of any age, requires an environment that promotes person-centered care as well as the latest in technology, clinical expertise and a caring staff.  The Lagoon rehabilitation unit offers a balance of the finest in treatment protocols, skilled care and a private healing environment.

Life at The Preserve offers comfort, security, and wellness. Each of the private apartments or suites includes a wall-mounted smart TV with free WiFi, home-made meals created by our in-house chef, housekeeping and maintenance services, professionally licensed nurses and certified nursing assistants available 24 hours a day, and so much more.

As part of the Volunteers of America family, The Preserve is an amenity-rich senior living community located in the heart of the Southwest Florida (SWFL) area. With the population growing in SWFL and rehabilitation centers operating at full capacity, there was a huge need for living options and health care for older adults. In 2015, the governor released a Certificate of Need for 75 skilled nursing rooms and Volunteers of America responded to the call, in collaboration with Lee Health and Hope Healthcare, and The Preserve was born.

Being the first to open in the newly developed health care network of providers called Hope Preserve, The Preserve is dedicated to caring for older adults and people with clinically-complex health needs. The Hope Preserve is located within one mile of state-of-the-art hospital, Gulf Coast Medical Center.

In closing, we’d like to thank our sister community Gulf Coast Village (GCV). How are we “related” you ask? Think of The Preserve and Gulf Coast Village as siblings with Volunteers of America being the parent of both. GCV is a Continuing Care Retirement Community that has been serving the Southwest Florida communities for 30 years and is considered a pioneer of senior living options. We appreciate the GCV team for their unwavering support and mentorship during the planning and construction phase. Your team definitely carried out your mission of “going wherever we are needed and doing whatever comes to hand” by supporting The Preserve employees.

When dealing with new construction and opening a new facility, the issue of having new employees on board, but no place for them to work yet is very real. Gulf Coast Village has been hosting our staff members for the last few months in many different departments all throughout their campus, providing the opportunity to plant our roots and grow. Through the GCV staff, the VOA culture has been demonstrated rather than explained. Our new employees have been trained on the floor rather than told what to do when the doors open, and most importantly, The Preserve was able to create a team before stepping foot in the brand-new building. No part of this could be achieved without the guidance of the wise older sibling that is Gulf Coast Village.

This mentoring relationship has provided the opportunity for The Preserve to lay the essential building blocks that will flourish into a beautiful community, just as the Gulf Coast Village has done over the last three decades.