Alzheimer's & Dementia Services changes plans for Crosstown center

Alzheimer's & Dementia Services changed its plans to renovate an 88-year-old building across from Crosstown Concourse and demolished the structure.

The nonprofit organization will erect an adult day-care at 445 N. Wakins, where the old, 7,300-square-foot Coin Laundry had stood until this past week. The laundromat closed late last fall.

"The cost of renovation, it turns out, was probably the same if not more than tearing it down and starting over,'' executive director Ruthann Shelton said Friday.

"We're excited. Our plans are still to do what we had envisioned, just in a new structure.''

Those plans include serving about 50 adults daily with a staff of 45 to 50. The organization provides daytime therapeutic and social programs for adults with dementia.

ANF Architects is designing the new center.

The facility will be the organization's first in the Crosstown/Midtown area, and third in Memphis. The organization operates centers from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, in Raleigh at Kennedy Park and in Hickory Hill.

Alzheimer's and Dementia Services of Memphis in December 2016 bought the Coin Laundry building for $668,500.

Shelton has described the service as day-care that is affordable.

Originally, plans were to start construction in early 2018 and be completed by the summer. But the implementation may happen in 2019 depending on the timing of the organization's fund-raising campaign.

Alzheimer's disease is a kind of dementia, which is a brain disorder that affects a person's ability to perform routine activities and to communicate. Alzheimer's affects memory, language and thought. About 120,000 Tennesseans live with Alzheimer's disease.

Alzheimer's & Dementia Services provides services for the VA, TennCare Choices, the state's program for the elderly and adults with physical disabilities, and for the Aging Commission. The organization also serves private payers, charging on a sliding scale depending on a family's ability to pay.

The exterior design of the new building will be moderately modern in a way that fits with the other, older buildings in the Crosstown commercial district, said Brian Martinelli, an associate with ANF Architects.

"We're very early on,'' he said. "We've just done some schematics while they are raising funds.

"We think it's going to be a brick and engineered-wood building. Light-coloroed brick echoing Crosstown. And some natural wood tones and some steel detailing.''

Building from scratch gives the organization more flexibility in the way it designs the space and where on the site the buillding can be placed, Martinelli said.

The front of the structure will be positioned next to the sidewalk. An early rendering shows parking to the south side of the building.

The center will be about 14,000 square feet, with about 10,000 on the ground floor and 4,000 on the second.

While the exterior will have a more modern look, the interior will be more traditional, Martinelli said, adding, "A little residential in feel for the patients. They need it to be homey and familiar.''