Blue Heron Breaks Ground On Expansion Of Skilled Nursing Department

By GARY NAGER

Sometime next summer, TLC Management is expected to unveil its 35 new skilled nursing suites as an addition to the company’s Blue Heron Senior Living Assisted Living & Memory Care on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd.

“We’re excited,” said TLC CEO Ryan Ott (right) at the Apr. 26 groundbreaking ceremony for that expansion. “Like “We didn’t expect to be at this point, where we would need to expand our skilled nursing (facility) this quickly.”

Despite Blue Heron only being open for about a year and a half, Ott said, the company saw the need to expand its skilled nursing care.

“This is a great location, which is becoming a health care hub (with BayCare, and AdventHealth hospitals already open and Orlando Health hospital on the way),” Ott added, “but the success of Blue Heron is because of the leadership team we have in place. We’re just trying to keep up with the demand.”

The additional skilled nursing beds also will allow Blue Heron to extend its therapy services to more patients and will allow the residence to expand the number of long-term patients it can accept.

“We currently have mostly shortterm rehab care to home patients,” he said. “But, we also have a number of assisted living residents who will eventually have need for long-term care and this will allow us to transition more patients to transition to our facility and stay right here, where they want to be.”

Ott also introduced Blue Heron’s partners in making the expansion project a reality, including representatives of Hawkins Construction, Architectural Concepts and Heidt Design engineering. “This project was not an individual vision,” he said. “It was a lot of people coming together to make it happen.”

Ott also thanked North Tampa Bay Chamber president and CEO Hope Kennedy (left), who not only hosted the groundbreaking ceremony but also helped the Ott family find the land on which Blue Heron is built.

Blue Heron is one of 19 familyowned senior living campuses owned and managed by TLC Management, LLC, in the company’s home state of Indiana and in Florida. The 35 additional private skilled nursing suites, which are expected to open by the summer of 2024, will bring Blue Heron’s skilled nursing total up to 141, in addition to its 95 private assisted living suites, 22 of which are memory care apartments (in a separate wing) for those with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.

For more info about Blue Heron Senior Living (5071 Eagleston Blvd.), see the ad on pg. 25, call (813) 454-0513 or visit SeniorLivingatBlueHeron.com.