Crete retirement home Village Woods closes after four decades of operation
Since 1981, when residents began moving into Village Woods Retirement Community, thousands of senior citizens have come to the sprawling former Holiday Inn near Crete to spend their later years.
Now, three months after the announcement Village Woods will close, the doors to that campus are locked, rooms are emptied and the lights are shut off. Missing from the building are the 84 residents and more than 80 staff members.
“Village Woods was part of my community,” said Carol Wentz, 84, who in October packed up and moved to StoryPoint Senior Living in Schererville, Indiana. “I’m farther from my family.”
Management promised they would help residents find a new place to move to on the short notice. Wentz said the nonprofit stuck to its word.
“It was Village Woods that moved us here. They paid for the move,” she said, noting one other resident came with her to StoryPoint’s Schererville location. “I got settled into a very nice apartment.”
Village Woods’ closure was due, in large part, to a building inspection that found concrete spalling.
Concrete spalling is when “part of the surface peels, breaks or chips away” and is caused by “a poor concrete mix, poor finishing, or overwatering,” according to ConcreteNetwork.com.
In a September interview with Richard Schutt, the CEO of Providence Life Services, he confirmed that a Chicago architecture and engineering firm estimated the immediate cost of the repairs to be a half-million dollars, but said that figure would balloon to more than $2 million.
The decision to close also goes beyond financial motivations and was triggered in part because conducting the required repairs would cause loud noises that would disrupt many residents, according to Schutt.
While Village Woods has a Crete address, it is just outside the town boundary in an unincorporated area, according to Crete Village Hall.
The building was a Holiday Inn before it was purchased by what would become Village Woods Christian Retirement Community. Village Woods, which still has some religious connection, added town houses in 1989, according to its website.
Owner Providence Life Services refused to comment. The future for the building and the land around Village Woods is unclear.
