Clint Guillot, owner of Luling Living Center nursing home on Paul Maillard, recently announced major renovations will begin soon on his building, and says his facility now has a targeted reopening date sometime around August 2024.
The nursing home on Paul Maillard was severely damaged from Hurricane Ida, and like many other residents and businesses, funds from his insurer was delayed for about a year.
“The roof lifted off the facility and just destroyed the whole inside,” Guillot said.
Repairing his facility was made more complicated due to a one-year licensing rule with the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, which required the facility to be back up and running within one year or risk his state operating license being revoked.
Given his insurance funds were delayed one year with no renovation work yet begun, Guillot was forced to petition the state to change the one-year rule before investing in the Luling Living Center renovation project further. The state examined his circumstances and recently agreed to grant him a longer licensing period, with six-month extensions available.
“So, I now have until February 2025 to complete the project, which if we get started [in July], let’s say July 15th or somewhere up in that area, we should be finished around August next year.”
Guillot has grand plans for the new renovation – starting with a new pitched metal roof to prevent what happened following Hurricane Ida from reoccurring. Roofing work will begin later in July. Following the completion of the new metal roof, the entire facility will be completely gutted and renovated in stages with primarily private rooms.
“Most of the rooms – about 80% – are going to be private rooms, which is different from other nursing homes around, which are all semi-private,” Guillot explained. “And this is a Medicaid facility, so Medicaid would be paying for the private rooms here.”
With most of Luling Living Center’s rooms set to become private rooms, Guillot says his operation will become just the third or fourth Medicaid-based nursing home facility throughout the state to have such a private room arrangement.
“It’s very unusual,” Guillot commented on his plans to include so many private rooms in his renovation project. “Most assisted living facilities are private rooms, but they’re private pay.”
Once renovations are complete, Guillot has additional plans, pending local and state approval, to expand the building’s footprint and include a skilled nursing unit facing the St. Charles Parish Hospital.
Luling Living Center residents during Ida were evacuated out of harm’s reach to the Kentwood area but given the extensive damage to the building on Paul Maillard, Guillot said he and his staff were unable to bring residents back to Luling.
“We didn’t have anything left, so we had to discharge all of our residents,” Guillot said. “We still stay in contact with them.”
While most former patients have since settled into facilities at various other locations, Gulliot said his staff will be returning, and he hopes to bring back as many prior residents as possible once the renovations are complete.
With a clear timeline and renovation completion date now in sight, Guillot spoke optimistically about his St. Charles Parish facility’s upcoming reopening.
“It’s been a big journey; it’s been a fight, and it’s been hard,” Guillot said. “But we’re coming across the finish line.”
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