Kendal at Oberlin has finished the first phase of a planned 10-year master plan to renovate facilities, improve living spaces for residents, and ensure the financial sustainability of the community. 

According to Kendal at Oberlin CEO Seth Vilensky and CFO Ann O’Malley, phase one of the plan, which was completed this year, “focused on renovating Kendal’s Stephens Care Center, creating a new friends corner dining room and gathering room activity center.” It also worked on improving staff work areas and common spaces. 

The next phase will focus on renovating the central kitchen, main community dining venues, and Kendal’s lounge. It is expected to start in May, and the renovations will be phased in over the course of a year. Planned renovations over the next seven to ten years will “envision improvements to other common spaces and grounds, healthcare and therapy programs, meeting and activity spaces, and further improvements to the resident rooms in the Stephens Care Center.”

Kendal has been working with architects Hiti, Difrancesco & Siebold, Inc. and has employed construction firm John G. Johnson Construction to work on the project. 

Phase one of the project has also seen improvements to the lighting system in the community and improvements to the Friends Art Gallery in the Stephens Care Center. The lighting system has been upgraded to a circadian lighting system. This system changes the intensity, color, and blue light wavelengths of the light through the course of a day to more closely match the natural sleep and wake cycles of the human body. This involves having the intensity at its highest during the morning and lunchtime, with it gradually decreasing into the evening and night.

“[The system is] something that aids their health, their sleep, and provides a better experience as eyes get older,” Kendal at Oberlin resident and lighting consultant Terry McGowan said. 

According to McGowan, Anthony Hiti, the architect for the project, initially came up with the idea and worked with a group of consultants to design it. Once the system was in place, residents thought that the intensity of the light was too high — a concern that McGowan brought forward to the lighting team. Due to his experience as a lighting consultant, he was able to work to program the system to better serve the needs of the residents. 

“Since I have been working in circadian lighting for some years now, I was able to help them with, particularly the programming of the system,” McGowan said. “The programming is set up so that it can change on an hourly basis, and all of the lights [in the space] are involved in that … so that several factors can be varied.” 

The system must take into account both the intensity of the direct light and the glare that the light will provide off surfaces. 

“Older people are more sensitive to glare than younger people, so it’s particularly difficult in a retirement community like this,” McGowan said. “[The system] concentrates on the space itself to provide proper lighting at the eye as the main function.”

The circadian lighting system was also set up in the Friends Gallery of the Stevens Care Center. According to Kendal at Oberlin Art Committee Chair Grover Zinn, William H. Danforth professor of religion emeritus and former associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Kendal has over 800 pieces of original art donated by residents. The retirement center has three art galleries, with the Friends Art Gallery located in the renovated Stephens Care Center.

Zinn said that the gallery has been updated to have the circadian lighting system, and that the light is designed for art galleries and is not just regular hallway lights.

He described the process as open, with the art committee being regularly consulted. 

“There was a very, very open consulting process for the renovation,” Zinn said. “[So I, as the] Chairman of the art committee and my Vice Chair, we met with the architects’ assistant to review and actually to ask for some suggestions, [which were] significant changes in the way that the gallery would have been designed. Throughout the whole process, there are multiple groups that are being consulted. “I think residents feel very much included in the process of the final design. We now have a committee called the Department of the Interior, which I think is a good phrase. It will be the group that is going to be consulted in terms of the renovation and final project.”

He also described the renovations as minimally disruptive.

“As far as the process of renovations, you always wonder how much dust and dirt will be trapped in and how much life will be dislocated. [But], there was no dust or dirt from the construction project. They had some nice windows in the wall where you could observe what was going on.”

This, according to Vilensky and O’Malley, was the goal of the process. 

“We conducted multiple surveys to ensure we understand the goals and preferences of the community before making design decisions,” they wrote. “It has been a very participative process and includes a variety of options/suggestions that have come from those key stakeholder meetings. We have worked hard to minimize disruption to resident life on campus during construction. Our construction teams have been very sensitive to the fact that they are working in the residents’ home. … Having a 10 year plan allows us to take some time to pause in between projects to avoid ‘construction fatigue’ amongst our residents and staff.”