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• Purchase of former Ag Star building in River Falls underway
• Nursing home question will go to voters

Menomonie-based Shefchik Builders will buy the two-story red-brick building at 186 County Road U that used to house the Nuclear Management Company and before that, the Farmers Credit Union (Ag Star).

Mostly vacant for almost two years, Shefchik confirms, "We are in the process of buying it hopefully by the end of the month."

He'll lease the lower floor, about 10,000-square feet, to Eau Claire-based Community Health Partnership. Shefchik said he'll be making about $120,000 worth of improvements to the first floor and will have about 9,000 more feet of leasable space upstairs.

Community Health Partnership marketing representative Dean Mathwig said the company is a managed-care entity that coordinates care for frail elderly and disabled adults. He said the River Falls-based office will serve Pierce and St. Croix counties.

Other Partnership offices serve people in Eau Claire, Chippewa and Dunn counties.

After months of discussion and study, St. Croix County supervisors, still unable to reach a decision on the future of the county nursing home, voted Tuesday to put the issue to voters this fall.

The wording of the referendum, and even the membership of the five-person committee that will draft the language, will be left to the new County Board, which will be seated in April.

The motion, adopted on a 22-4 vote Tuesday afternoon, says the county will continue to operate the home in New Richmond for the time being and will hold a Nov. 4 advisory referendum. In the meantime the board will continue gathering information on the cost of remodeling the existing facility or building a new one.

A proposed amendment to say that voters would be asked if the county should continue to provide a tax levy subsidy for the home failed.

The county expects to spend $790,000 of tax money this year to run the existing home.

In January a consultant estimated it would cost $11 million to build and furnish a new 72-bed replacement facility and that would cost county taxpayers about $1.2 million a year. The same consultant estimated a 50-bed home would cost over $7.8 million, for a yearly tax levy cost of about $992,000.

This week Larry Lester of Wipfli CPAs and Consultants reported that it would cost roughly $900,000 to remodel the existing 72-bed facility to a 50-bed facility with nursing home rooms on both floors.

He said it would cost about $1.3 million to remodel the facility to accommodate 50 nursing home beds and a 20-unit community-based residential facility.

The annual tax levy cost for the first alternative would be about $436,000, said Lester. That would be a drop from current costs, but the home would be serving fewer patients, he said.

Lester said the county can't avoid tax subsidies when the wages and benefits paid to county nursing home employees are as high as they are.