The demand for independent living is growing in the senior housing and care field. Good Samaritan Center, an Albert Lea senior care facility, is evolving with the trend.

&uot;When people my age go to put their parents in housing, their expectations are different than what people have had in the last 30 years,&uot; Mark Anderson, Administrator for the center, said. People want care, he continued, but they want to be comfortable and independent.

Thursday the center announced plans to build a new $3.3 million facility for assisted living. The building will have 24 units with nurses available all the time. Construction is planned to begin next spring.

Anderson said the facility will be the next step for some seniors after living in the Bancroft Bay Estates building for independent senior housing. It will house those who might need more care, but don’t need full time care.

In 1998 the 182 resident facility added a 44 unit independent living facility, Bancroft Bay Estates. It was filled by the end of that year.

Anderson expects the same for the $3.3 million facility they are planning to build.

&uot;I’m very confident we’ll have this next place full in no time,&uot; he said.

His confidence comes from watching the population trend in the area.

&uot;Freeborn county’s population isn’t necessarily getting bigger, but it is getting older,&uot; Anderson said. That population has increased a demand for senior living, but the kind of living wanted has changed.

Good Samaritan is part of a nationwide organization that has homes in 25 states. Anderson said the trend toward individualized senior care has been brewing for many years.

Locally, Anderson and others are trying to keep up.

&uot;We want to have available all models for living styles,&uot; Anderson said.

In the future, the center might also add housing units that look like condos, making a suburban neighborhood feel to the area.

Bancroft Creek Estates is independent living, but help is one button push away.

For Mary G. Pagenkoph, the move to Bancroft Creek Estates was an easy one. After living many years on her own in Wells, she decided she needed a home that didn’t take so much work.

&uot;They try to help you out whenever you want something,&uot; she said, talking about the center’s focus on independent living. &uot;I wanted to put up my planters outside, and they had no problems with my doing that. It seems more like home to me when I can go outside and water my plants every day.&uot;

Dorothy Beger used to live in a retirement home in Wells, but moved to the Good Samaritan center to have a less institutionalized feel.

&uot;I hadn’t cooked in a while,&uot; she said. &uot;But once I got back to it, it was great. It’s nice to be able to do that.&uot;

(Contact Peter Cox at peter.cox@albertleatribune.com or 379-3439.)