URBANA, Ill. (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- The Evanston-based owners of a nursing home in Urbana that was purchased three years ago from Champaign County with an agreement to keep it running are threatening to close the 243-bed facility, the largest in the area.
The Champaign County Nursing Home was losing money when it was sold to the Rothner family, owners of University Rehab Real Estate LLC.
County board member Jim Goss told CBS 3 in Champaign, it was a mess at the time.
“We were losing, you know, over $100,000 a month.”
The facility was sold under an agreement that it would remain a nursing home until 2028. It’s now called University Rehabilitation Center.
Speaking for the owners, Keith Gibbons, went before the County Board with a plan to convert it into a substance abuse facility or to sell it to a non-nursing home operator.
“The losses that we’ve incurred have been substantial and continued.”
Board member Eric Thorsland answered:
“I’ve got four ‘nos’ for you, ‘no,’ ‘heck no,’ ‘hell no,’ and you can figure out the last one.”
“We do not need approval, respectfully, to close the nursing home,” Gibbons said. They do need state approval, which could come in 60 days.
Claudia Lenhoff is the Executive Director of Champaign County Healthcare Consumers.
“Their business model is not really about delivering nursing home care," she said. "Their business model is about acquiring properties and flipping them.”
The Rothners bought, closed and sold two other nursing homes in the area around the same time.
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