LAKE PLACID – The company that’s taking over operations of the Uihlein Living Center nursing home plans to increase the number of residents at the facility, helping to fill what state officials say is a need for more long-term care for an aging population.

Post Acute Partners also plans to spend several million dollars to renovate the 50-year-old building, according to the company’s Certificate of Need application filed with the state Department of Health. The Enterprise recently obtained a copy of the application through a Freedom of Information Law request.

Adirondack Health is selling its interest in, and the contents of, the nursing home to Post Acute Partners for $600,000. Adirondack Health will still own the building and property, leasing it to Post Acute Partners, which operates nursing homes, assisted living, independent living and other health-care facilities in Western New York and several other states.

The Old Military Road nursing home will be called Elderwood of Uihlein at Lake Placid. Many of Post Acute Partners’ Buffalo-area nursing homes include the Elderwood name.

The state Public Health and Health Planning Council granted “contingent approval” to the deal last month, but it hasn’t closed yet, according to Adirondack Health spokesman Joe Riccio.

“It’s in the final stages,” he said, “the final stages of forming a partnership.”

Uihlein Living Center is one of two nursing homes Adirondack Health bought in January 2007 from the Sisters of Mercy. The other, Mercy Living Center in Tupper Lake, will continue to be run by Adirondack Health.

The change in ownership of the Lake Placid nursing home was triggered by financial losses at the facility, primarily due to lagging Medicaid reimbursement rates. To mitigate those losses, Adirondack Health restricted admissions to short-term residents in 2012 and, the following year, downsized the 156-bed facility to 80 staffed beds. That led to the discharge of 38 residents, only three of whom were placed in other facilities in Essex County. The occupancy rate at Uihlein dropped from 75 percent in 2012 to 46 percent last year.

Representatives of Post Acute Partners didn’t return a call for comment, but the company plans to increase the number of staffed beds at Uihlein to help boost its occupancy back up to 77 percent by its third year of operations, according to documents it has filed with the state.

“Upon approval of this (Certificate of Need), the new operator will implement measures to make the Uihlein Living Center facility more attractive and increase options for those in need of sub-acute rehabilitation as well as traditional residential health care services, particularly those who would have to seek such services at a great distance from their loved ones,” reads a report filed by Frank Cicero, a consultant representing Post Acute Partners.

The company’s business plan calls for spending $4.5 million over the next three years, including $2 million in the first year, on construction, rehabilitation and renovations to the facility. Post Acute also says it will implement programs for residents with obesity, wound care, cardio-pulmonary and diabetic conditions, and various forms of dementia.

It plans to work closely with Lake Placid Orthopedics “to provide a seamless transition from post-acute rehabilitation to home,” and partner with Adirondack Health. The latter is planning a new facility on the Uihlein campus to house all the services it provides at its Adirondack Medical Center-Lake Placid hospital on Church Street as well as new services like a gymnasium, a hydrotherapy pool and expanded rehabilitation space.

“Once the Lake Placid Health and Medical Fitness Center is built, I think just by virtue of proximity, there’s going to be opportunities for collaboration between ourselves at Elderwood of Uihlein at Lake Placid,” Riccio said.

Post Acute Partners also plans to do more outreach and marketing to the region’s health care and social services providers “to publicize the new ownership of the facility and to convey the new operator’s plan to make physical plant improvements that will lead to fully staffing the 156 certified beds,” according to the consultant’s report.

A “Need Analysis” included in the state’s approval of the deal says there’s a projected need for 368 nursing home beds in Essex County this year but only 340 available. It also notes that there are only two other nursing homes in the county: Essex Center for Rehab and Healthcare (formerly the county-owned Horace Nye Nursing Home) in Elizabethtown and Heritage Commons Residential Healthcare in Ticonderoga.

Post Acute Care has already negotiated a contract with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1, the union that represents all of Uihlein’s employees except registered nurses and management personnel. UFCW Local 1 spokesman Mike Furner said he’s been told the new operators won’t take over until June 1. He said his members are “anxious” for the deal to be finalized.

“It’s been quite a while, over two years now,” he said. “I don’t know if they feel if it’s better or worse. I think they’re just going to wait and see.

“The (new owners) plan to have more beds. They’re going to be putting a lot of money into the place. Overall, I think it will be better for members. I think they’ll have more opportunity down the road.”

Post Acute Partners says it plans to maintain the nursing home’s connection with the Sisters of Mercy, who continue to have a presence at Uihlein.

The Rev. John Yonkovig, pastor of St. Agnes Church in Lake Placid, said he visits Uihlein every Wednesday. He said he’s only heard good things about the company taking over the nursing home.

“When the management team came in from Buffalo, everybody seemed quite pleased with it,” he said. “They met with the Sisters of Mercy, and they were exceptionally pleased. It sounds very upbeat and positive.”

Yonkovig said some elderly local residents have had to leave the area to find nursing home care.

“That’s a hardship for families that live in Saranac Lake, Tupper Lake or Lake Placid – the distance to travel,” he said. “If they can have more beds here, I think that’s a positive.”