Former South Toledo hotel to open as senior living facility

Genesis Village to offer meals, amenities

A ballroom has been renovated at the complex. It will have a pool, whirlpool, and a multimedia center with a theater-size screen.

The Blade/Andy Morrison
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A former hotel complex in South Toledo will become an amenity-filled senior living community, most likely by June, its new owners-developers said today.

Genesis Village, 2429 Reynolds Rd. at Heatherdowns Boulevard, will open this summer with 138 one and two-bedroom, moderately priced apartments “for active seniors who want to continue to live vibrant lives,” said co-owner Jim Oedy, a local businessman who has owned three senior living centers in the Fremont area.

Mr. Oedy and his partner, Dr. Nathan Hill, purchased the site for $3 million in January from Toledo's First Church of God, and are spending $6 million to renovate the former hotel, originally constructed in 1968, into a senior living center.

The church had operated it for seven years as the Genesis Dreamplex Hotel and Conference Center.

Genesis Village's tenants are expected to be seniors 55 and over, and the apartments will lease for between $1,500 and $2,800 a month depending on size. Mr. Oedy said the complex has a waiting list.

The owners anticipate a June opening, but Mr. Oedy said it could be earlier or later depending on how quickly the remodeling and conversion take.

“When you’re doing a rehab of this magnitude you can always have some ugly surprises or things you didn’t count on as you rehabilitate,” he said.

The 10-acre, 170,000-square-foot complex that operated as a Holiday Inn from 1968 until 1995, a Ramada Inn from 1995 to 1999, and a Quality Hotel from 1999 to 2004, had received a $40 million renovation in the late 1980s that upgraded nearly all aspects of its structures.

Mr. Oedy said the buildings were in remarkably good shape, but even so, when work crews are finished “every wall, floor, and ceiling will have been redone.”

In addition, Mr. Oedy and Dr. Hill, who own the complex as Genesis Retirement LLC, are remodeling the conference center and other aspects of the complex to offer multiple services and amenities to its future tenants.

“At one point, this place had the largest indoor pool in city. We redid that and also built a large whirlpool,” Mr. Oedy said. “We will have a lot of amenities you just don’t have in a typical senior facility.”

The Genesis Village complex will have a pool, whirlpool, sauna, locker rooms, fireside cafe, fireplace lounge, a multimedia center with a theater-size screen, a beauty salon, wellness center, fitness center, atrium for games and activities, two courtyards, a vegetable garden, and a five-acre green-space.

The Genesis Village will open at 2429 S. Reynolds Road.

The complex will provide tenants with three daily meals prepared by chef Kameel Ansara.

“If it was in Florida, some of my friends would be calling this a resort,” Mr. Oedy said.

But the owner-developer said going for extra amenities was crucial to making Genesis Village a place where families would want to come to visit their relatives.

“I built and ran three senior living facilities in the Fremont area, so I have experience in this area,” Mr. Oedy said. “And one of the biggest negatives of senior facilities is family and friends don’t come to visit someone there. They come to pick somebody up and take them out to eat."

“But in this situation, we envision this will be a magnet with all these meeting rooms and dining rooms. Grandkids can come and go swimming or play pool or see a movie," he said. “Nothing energizes seniors more than having kids coming in and interacting. They really respond to that. It allows them to feel like grandparents again."

“We plan to promote [Genesis Village] by saying you may come for the amenities, but you’ll stay for the atmosphere,” Mr. Oedy said.

Initially, Mr. Oedy had no plans to get involved with the project. When the First Church of God owned the site from 2004 until two months ago, its pastor, the Rev. Robert Culp, envisioned turning the hotel into a retirement community one day but could not fund the project.

Three years ago Mr. Culp asked Mr. Oedy to help him find financing to move the project forward. But last summer Mr. Oedy said it became clear financing would not be available and the only way the site could be converted to a senior living community was if he and Dr. Hill were to buy it from the First Church of God, which they eventually did.

Contact Jon Chavez at: jchavez@theblade.com or 419-724-6128.