Park Vista celebrates its new common area room

The new common area room inside the Park Vista Retirement Living – North Hill facility in East Moline has many friendly faces. Those faces – seen on about 14 photo portraits of current Park Vista residents – cover the walls of the new room officially named the Park Vista Legacy. “Our residents are our family. […]

The new common area room inside the Park Vista Retirement Living – North Hill facility in East Moline has many friendly faces. Those faces – seen on about 14 photo portraits of current Park Vista residents – cover the walls of the new room officially named the Park Vista Legacy.

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“Our residents are our family. So, we wanted to feature our family in this room,” said Julie Lonergan, CEO of Park Vista Senior Housing Management. Park Vista North Hill is a part of Park Vista Senior Housing Management, which serves residents and team members in Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa. About 40 members of the management company and Park Vista communities got a chance to look at those faces during a Quad Cities Chamber of Commerce ribbon-cutting ceremony on Tuesday, April 16. The event marked the completion of a large common area room on the third floor of the care facility at 1451 20th Ave. That room was completed as part of second phase renovations and expansions of the Park Vista memory care portion of the facility. The retirement living facility offers assisted living and independent living options, in addition to its memory care services.  “This is going to offer people a much larger, open space for them,” said Ms. Lonergan, adding that the room was created by removing the walls and combining three former residential units on the third floor. The common area features a living room with large TVs on the walls and furniture such as comfortable couches and chairs. There is also a dining room with several tables and a recreation area. During Tuesday's ceremony, the rec area featured two tables filled with several small paintings that were created by residents. That area of the room also features a large sign stating “Excuse our mess. Exciting Phase 2 memory care revamp in progress.” Even though most of the new common area room is complete, there are still a few “fine tuning” tasks to do in the room, said Shelley MacMillan, marketing and sales director at Park Vista. She added that more equipment will be put into the recreation area side of the room, and a “zen area” will be created in the Park Vista Legacy room. Creation of the common area room is the latest improvement project at Park Vista North. Last fall, a series of large, colorful murals were painted on the walls of the third floor of the facility as part of the first phase of work. Those 14 murals, which depict a variety of local scenes and scenes from nature, are all meant to help people battling dementia issues. The art is meant to help residents by sparking fond memories of the community and getting residents to open up and better communicate.  The art was created by local artists, including Atlanta Dawn, Sarah Jean Robb, Heidi Sallows, Doug Rasmussen, Eve Van Kampen and  Andrea “Andy” Wesa. “Regular engagement … can be helpful in treating memory issues by offering ways to engage all of the senses of our residents and can even show improvement in their symptoms and how they function on a daily basis,” according to information from Park Vista. One of the large wall murals is just outside the new commons room. The painting depicts a scene from the movie “Field of Dreams.” It shows several baseball players walking out of a cornfield. On the side of the mural is the phrase: “Is this heaven? No, it’s the Legacy.” Work on the new common areas room began last fall, shortly after the wall murals were completed, said Ms. Lonergan. She added that there will be some additional work to the common room area. For instance, a wall near the room will be taken down to allow residents to have easier access to the area. However, no additional phases of renovations are in the planning stages at this time. During the ceremony, several visitors said they liked the new room and all of its features. Many focused on the black-and-white photo portraits of residents taken by Ms. MacMillan.  While showing some of the features of the room, she pointed out one of her favorite photos. It shows a husband and wife standing next to each other with the woman leaning on her husband. The man is wearing a baseball-style hat with “Quad Cities Honor Flight” printed on it. She said taking the photos was a great experience for her and the residents. “No, they didn’t mind having their photos taken. They loved it,”  Ms. MacMillan added.