The Landing of Hamilton

Anna

My mother has moved into The Landing of Hamilton. We chose it because it was new, very clean, and looked like a hotel. The rooms were very nice. The studios were nice. They have full-size refrigerators. The bathrooms were large. She's in memory care now. She started in assisted living. The staff is very caring. They've had parties and I've tried the food, and it's been fine, but I've heard some complaints from the residents there that they don't like some of the food. They have an exercise room. They bring in exercise instructors to work with them. They have activity rooms where they play bingo and do drawings and crafts and all that stuff. Their price is equal to other places. They're not astronomically high and they're not low either. They're just in between. I've been to a few other places and a few places are more expensive and a few places are less expensive, but the less expensive ones aren't as nice. I chose The Landing because it was a nicer place.

Ray

I visited The Landing of Hamilton. They were just opening. We were able to do an in house visit because there were no residents in and they were booking people. It is an attractive place, although I would not necessarily look to use it as a memory care unit, just because it's a big facility. It's a nice facility, but again, for the most part, it was so big. The rooms, I thought, were a little smaller than what the other facility had. It was nice, but when I took a look at the price point, the memory care was a greater amount than what I was paying for mom. The room was slightly higher as well, but again, the problem I had with them was, they weren't open and I have been talking to them since August. When we did our onsite visit at the end of September, it still hadn't got their New Jersey certification yet. My goal was to get my mom into an assisted living facility by mid-October, I had no guarantee that she would be able to get in there in enough time. It was gorgeous, it was kept very well. Again, there was nobody there, they were just accepting applications for reservations. It was huge. It's a big place, had two floors, gorgeous place, brand new, and little bit more expensive. That was an option. I had a certain dollar amount, so I priced out how much it would cost over a period of time, as I planned a two and a half years of care based on the amount of fund that she had, and she would not have had enough fund to stay at The Landing, it would be less than two years. I talked to the sales person, unfortunately, there was no staff. The tours were done with the sales people and not necessarily the care givers or the program people. When we did the online tour and the online conversation with the other facility, not only was the sales person was on that call, but so as the director and also the program director. They had the chance to interact with mom so it wasn't just sale. We went to The Landing and they really weren't staffed up either. We didn't have the opportunity to talk to a director or any of the program managers or even the staff that was going to be available, because they hadn't been staffed up yet and they hadn't been occupied. They have indoor common areas. They isolate their type of care that they provide between floors as opposed to the other facility where they do it by wings. On the second floor and the first floor, they had separate dining. They also had the cooking facilities. It was a gorgeous place, very attractive, the problem being again, it was brand new, which also meant to me that it was going to take some time for them to get their act together. It would be a great place as a facility. It was clean, but it wasn't staffed. It was also the fact that for the first couple of months, as they started to ramp up their care facility, you'd end up running into the typical bugs on any company that does as a startup, or any facility that does a startup. The sales person that I talked to knew the pricing. She knew the facility and then they have a whole pamphlet area, but frankly, the price point is important, so as the rooms, the facility, and what they offer. I would rank them a four only because, I don't want to say it's brand new, but they're trying basically to sell a facility that had no history. Some questions couldn't be answered because stuff wasn't in place. I think it's a great place, but some of the rankings I also based on the price performance. Their community fee was relatively a problem right where it is, I just thought that their memory care increments were a lot higher from what they offer. It's tough to tell for that they offer, in terms of memory care because frankly, they had no history. When I calculated for mom, the memory care for The Landing would have cost her $1900 versus the $1200 she's paying at the other facility now.