altadenablog

MonteCedro sponsors healthy lifestyle workshops

Cindy Carlburg of Altadena, center, receives the raffle prize of "Fit 2 Love" and "Knack Absolute Abs" at the a workshop with fitness coach and author JJ Flizanes in January.  The MonteCedro retirement community sponsored two healthy lifestyle workshops with Flizanes last month.

On February 27 and 28, 2011, MonteCedro will host “Conductorcise,” which combines music appreciation and fitness, with Maestro David Dworkin. Dworkin has conducted orchestras around the world, was the principal clarinetist with the American Symphony Orchestra, and performed with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. To RSVP or receive additional information about MonteCedro, please call 877-282-1584 or visit www.montecedro.org.

MonteCedro offers fitness and health seminar

By Timothy Rutt

MonteCedro, the planned retirement community from Episcopal Communities & Services, will host two educational seminars with personal fitness expert and author JJ Flizanes on maintaining a healthy diet and fitness program throughout the year.

Flizanes will share ten tips on how-to fill your plate at social functions and parties without busting your buttons. Attendees will also learn how to lose weight fast, feel confident and sexy, exercise with little or no equipment, and identify why you have stopped seeing results from your workouts.

The two seminars will be Wed., Jan. 25 at 11 AM at the Altadena Town and Country Club, 2290 Country Club Dr., and Thurs., Jan. 26 at the MonteCedro Presentation Gallery, 153 E. Holly St., Pasadena.

Seating for this event is limited. To register for this event, please visit www.montecedro.org or call 877-282-1584.

 

Altadena Historical Society receives Scripps Home archives

Members of the Altadena Historical Society (AHS) and the Episcopal Home Communities look through the contents of a box of documents and pictures from the Scripps Home.  From left: former Scripps resident Jeanne Guernsey, Mary Lou Langedyke of AHS, Martha Tamburrano, president and CEO of the Episcopal Homes Communities, AHS Archivist Sherry Cavallo, and Kathy Hoskins of AHS.

by Timothy Rutt

The Altadena Historical Society welcomed a treasure trove Tuesday morning, as the Episcopal Home Communities donated a large cache of documents, pictures, and artifacts from the Scripps Home to their archive.

The Scripps Home was a senior housing community that opened in 1912, at the now-vacant site on North El Molino Avenue between East Calavaras Street and Alameda Street. The Scripps Home was acquired by the Episcopal Home Communities, which closed the home in 2007 and tore down the buildings to create a more modern facility, MonteCedro. Residents of Scripps were relocated to other senior housing owned by the Episcopal Home Communities, but the bad economy has stalled construction of MonteCedro and the property remains vacant.

Pictured: Episcopal Home's director of pastoral care The Rev. Sarah Nichols moves a large framed photograph into the Historical Society's office at the Altadena Community Center.

But old records, scrapbooks, and photos from the Scripps Home were saved and put in storage.  Jeanne Guernsey, a former Scripps resident who now lives at The Windsor facility in Glendale, took charge of the items and worked to insure their collection and preservation.  

Pictured: Archivist Sherry Cavello watches as Episcopal Homes' CEO Martha Tamburrano signs over ownership of the collection to the Altadena Historical Society.

"My heart and soul is in this, and I treasure every item," Guernsey told a group of women from the Episcopal Homes and the Altadena Historical Society during the delivery.

The Episcopal Home Communities offered to donate the Scripps ephemera to the Altadena Historical Society to be preserved and catalogued, at a location not too far from where the home was located.

"This is a real gift to Altadena's collection," said Mary Lou Langedyke, a board member of the Historical Society.

Pictured: the trove of documents included photographs, framed newspaper and magazine articles, and other large items.

 

(Note: fixed the identifications on the first picture -- never, never do anything before that first cup of coffee!)

Episcopal Homes considering selling Alhambra property

And now the Episcopal Home Communities, owner of the MonteCedro property/vacant lot west of Lake, are considering selling the Scripps Kensington in Alhambra (where many Altadena Scripps Home residents were relocated to allow development of MonteCedro).  Episcopal Home Communities has signed a letter of intent to sell the property, the potential buyers being a group of physicians who plan to redevelop it into a "state of the art" senior facility.  Alfred Lee at PSN has the scoop.

MonteCedro: one step forward, two steps back

PWeekly's Andre Coleman has a piece on the MonteCedro project today, balancing quotes from those who like it, those who don't, and those who think that change was inevitable.  It's a good recap of what happened and where we are to date (and we don't mind telling you AC picked our brains a little bit, too!).

County hearing on MonteCedro today at 9:30

Sorry we hadn't gotten to this sooner (yesterday was kind of hellish), but the LA County Board of Supervisors will be meeting THIS MORNING at 9:30 AM to discuss various permits for the MonteCedro project. (Even tho' the project itself is on hold, the owners, Episcopal Homes, is still pursuing the permits required.)

Amendments include: changing the land use category for low-density residential to medium density; a conditional use permit; a housing permit; and an oak tree permit to remove nine trees from the property.

Meeting is at:

Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration

500 West Temple Street, Room 381B

Los Angeles, CA  90012

Click graphics to enlarge.

MonteCedro retirement community is the economy's latest victim

MonteCedro, the $200 million retirement community complex that was to occupy the site of the former Scripps Home, has been put on hold indefinitely, according to the owners, the Episcopal Home Communities.

Last week, this letter went out to potential residents of the complex:

February 12, 2009

Dear Friends of MonteCedro,

For the past thirty months The Episcopal Home Communities has been moving forward to bring a new continuing care retirement community, MonteCedro, to the San Gabriel Valley.  At the time we began, the housing market was strong and financing was readily available at good interest rates.  As you all know, both of those circumstances have changed dramatically. Housing prices, upon which we based the project’s financial and marketing feasibility, have fallen at least twenty-five percent in our area.  Financing is virtually frozen and, if we could even obtain it, is at rates that make the project unaffordable.  Consequently, and with great regret, we must share the news with you that management, in consultation with our Board of Directors, has decided to postpone the MonteCedro project indefinitely.

We have the privilege of owning three great retirement communities and our first obligation is to keep the overall organization strong.  To proceed with the MonteCedro project in these uncertain economic times would not be an exercise of good financial stewardship.

A number of you have given us a priority reservation deposit.  We have already requested our escrow agent, Union Bank of California, to release them.  We will return them to you as soon as we receive them.

We would like to remain a resource to you as you seek to plan for your retirement.  Please call us if you would like to discuss opportunities at any of our three communities, The Canterbury in Rancho Palos Verdes, The Covington in Aliso Viejo, and Scripps Kensington in Alhambra.  We have enjoyed the opportunity to meet you and have so appreciated your enthusiasm and support during the pre-marketing of MonteCedro.  We know it would have been a tremendous community, had the time been right for its development.  We continue to wish you well and we will stay in touch if the situation changes for MonteCedro.

Sincerely yours,

Martha L. Tamburrano
President & CEO

Episcopal Homes' director of sales Peggy Buchanan told Altadenablog, "I’m very sad about it -- it was a fabulous project .. the folks who are interested in it are very disappointed."  She said that the final entitlements from the county to complete the project would probably come through in March and that sprinklers had just been installed on the property.  For now, she said, Episocpal Home Communities still owns the vacant property and will continue to maintain it.

Marketing MonteCedro in uncertain times

Via the stalkeriffic Contra Costa Times (altho' it also appeared on the front page of PSN), Janette Williams looks at the new face of retirement living at MonteCedro.

A couple of comments:

• In the PSN/CCT story, the subsidy is $3.5 million a year, altho' at the last town council meeting, MonteCedro representatives said that the subsidy for low income residents would be $1.5 million a year.  What's up with that?
• We note that, rather than speed-dialing some Voice of Altadena, this time PSN went to Michele Zack. Zack is a local historian and town council member, and actually has some standing to comment on the issue at hand.  Now, if they'd only spell her name correctly.

UPDATE 2 PM: See comments section for further explanations and clarifications from Michele Zack and  Martha L. Tamburrano, CEO of Episcopal Home Communities, owners of MonteCedro

Altadena Town Council Meeting, 7 PM Tues. Sept. 16

... at the Community Center.  Council chair Gino Sund writes that there are three important items on this agenda: (1) The MonteCedro Retirement Home project, successor to the Scripps Home; (2) a proposal by the Altadena Town & Country Club to construct three tennis courts at Eliot Middle School for shared use, and (3) a presentation on the Pasadena Unified School District's proposed $350 million bond issue.

MonteCedro, Eliot tennis courts on land use committee agenda Sept. 2

Town council chair Gino Sund tells Altadenablog that the Altadena Town Council Land Use Committee will have two significant and controversial items on the agenda: an information item on the Eliot Middle School tennis courts, and the Monte Cedro development at the site of the old Scripps Home will be up for a vote to refer to the Town Council.

Writes Sund:

In September, the Altadena Town Council will be voting on the reconstruction plans for the Scripps Retirement Home, now called MonteCedro.  MonteCedro  will be the largest, around $200 million, and the most important project in Altadena in years.  I would invite all interested or curious residents to attend the Land Use Committee meeting on September 2nd or the Town Council meeting on September 16th.  You will hear the presentations by the Episcopal Home Community (the successor organization to Scripps) and will be given an opportunity to ask questions and to express your opinions.

The meeting will be held Tues., Sept. 2, at 7 PM at the Altadena Community Center, 730 E Altadena Dr.

MonteCedro: The story thus far

Alice Sarkisian Wessen, one of those amazing people who has her finger on the pulse of everything, is contributing light (rather than heat) to the development of the Scripps Home/MonteCedro retirement home.  She offers this timeline of the development on the eve of the Altadena Land Use Committee meeting:

I was actually in attendance when dozens of Scripps residents and their board presented to the Altadena Town Council in May 2007.

As when I heard of issues related to the Altadena Library going around, I went to the sources and members of the BOD.

I did the same here.

Below is gathered from first hand knowledge, my notes when in attendance, and folks involved with the process.

Land Use Committee considers Scripps Home replacement

MonteCedro, the Episcopal Homes' new development on the site of the old Scripps Home, will on the agenda at the Altadena Town Council Land Use Committee meeting tomorrow (7 PM at the community center).   This may be a hot meeting, as moving the population to Alhambra and destroying the old home to build a massive new facility are meeting with more than its fair share of local controversy.

BTW, MonteCedro has a website up:

www.montecedro.org/

Scripps Home site plans unveiled

Just had time to stop in at last night's meeting at the Community Center. The Episcopal Homes (which merged with the Scripps Home corporation last year) unveiled their preliminary plans for MonteCedro, the new retirement complex that will occupy the site of the Scripps Home. Scripps residents relocated late last year to the Kensington Episcopal Home in Alhambra, and a spokesman for the home said that Scripps Home residents will be offered the option of moving to MonteCedro when it is completed, probably about 2013.

While planning is still in the early stages, the concept drawings show a Mission-style complex of no taller than three stories, along with four "villas" along Crawford. Episcopal Homes is planning on investing $200 million in the complex. Episcopal Homes is looking at providing $1.5 million a year or so in charitable care at MonteCedro.

A 330-vehicle underground parking garage is planned for the main complex, as well as above-ground parking for the villas. There will be some parking for visitors, but no space for RVs. About 190 apartments are planned for the main building, which will range from 750-1500 sq. feet. The villas will each hold 12 apartments. There will also be 38 assisted living units.

The planners hope to get their entitlements by fall of this year. It will take about two years to sell units and secure financing. Construction start is planned for 2011, and opening by 2013.

In the meantime, more community meetings are planned as the design is finalized. Stay tuned.

Note: corrected the number of apartments!