Phase Three Update at Mountrail Bethel Home

Stanley, ND – In the Spring of 2017, the current Mountrail Bethel Home (MBH) Board Chairman, Heath Hetzel, and the Mountrail County Health Foundation Board Chairman, Wade Enget, brought together past MBH Board Chairs to discuss what they felt was needed to be included in the Phase Three construction project.  From those meetings, a survey was developed to send out to the community to determine what they felt the needs of Phase Three should be.  With help from the Center for Rural Health in Grand Forks, a survey was built for the residents of Mountrail County to complete during the month of May 2017.

“The survey results came back with 70 percent of the respondents stating we needed to add a Memory Care to our current expansion, and 85 percent of the respondents stated we needed to add an Assisted Living,” states Heath Hetzel, MBH Board President. “And with an article on KX News last summer stating North Dakota is the second in the nation behind South Dakota in having the most Alzheimer cases and recent studies done by Strengthen ND showing that our 65+ age group is projected to increase 45.4% by the year 2029, we have yet again changed our story on Phase Three.  But, we feel that this story is the best and most solid out of any of the chapters we have written before.  It addresses EVERY need that was expressed inside the surveys and future needs coming at us from within the community of Stanley.”

Phase Three will be built in phases as the funding becomes available.  With 80 percent of the funding in place for Part 1, 2A and 2B, a motion was made at the December 2017 MBH Board meeting to move forward with new drawings, receive bids and start the building of Phase Three: Part 1, 2A and 2B.  In conjunction with this motion, the Mountrail County Health Foundation board passed a motion in their December 2017 meeting to give support of $2 million dollars for these first parts of Phase Three.

Bids were opened on Monday, April 30, 2018 and the $4.8 million project was awarded to Mattson Construction from Minot.  Construction was started on the new parking lot on May 14, 2018.

Part 1, 2A and 2B consists of:

  • New employee parking lot
  • Fourteen Unit Bethel Assisted Living Complex to the South in the existing employee parking lot
  • Bethel Chapel and Meeting Room to be built in the existing courtyard area.

As future funding becomes available, the next parts of the building project will be:

  • Thirty-six bed Nursing Home to the north, with an Alzheimer’s Wing.
  • New Centennial Court adjacent to the Assisted Living.
  • Remodeling the existing Activities and Dining Room into a larger kitchen, purchasing area and a conference room.

“This entire project comes with an $18.5 million price tag,” states Hetzel.  “But to ensure the future of having the Mountrail Bethel Home here when you or I need it, we have to take the bull by the horns and just start in on this and God will lead us to where we need to go.  I am sure back in 1971 when the board approved to withdraw from the Lutheran Homes for the Aged of Williston and form a new corporation called the Mountrail Bethel Home, Inc. they were thinking the same thing.”

The Mountrail County Health Foundation board started their “Partnering for the Future” Capital Campaign in October of 2013.  Future fundraising, low interest loans, and grants will all be avenues of possible funding to help pay for the remaining portion of this much needed expansion of the Mountrail Bethel Home.