Background

The Nursing Care Center at Medford is a 200,000 square foot 320-bed skilled nursing facility located in Suffolk County Long Island. This was Rockhall’s first FHA loan. Rockhall financed the $50 million project using an FHA Section 232 loan. 

The Challenge

HUD originally rejected the application because the HUD economist concluded that there was no demand for a new 320-bed skilled nursing facility in Suffolk County Long Island. Rather than accepting HUD’s conclusion, Rockhall conducted a number of custom demographic studies using Claritas. The data demonstrated that HUD was significantly understating the senior population on Long Island.  Because the planned facility offered a ventilator unit and a trauma unit, Rockhall analyzed comparable specialty beds in the project’s market area and found critical shortages of supply that weren’t considered by the HUD economist. Rockhall also found that, in response to those shortages, many patients had to be placed out of state at great expense and great inconvenience to the patients.  Rockhall personally interviewed the outplacement directors of all hospitals within a 15-mile radius of the planned facility and found that many of those directors were having difficulty finding suitable nursing home beds for patient discharge. Rockhall analyzed historic nursing home bed utilization in Suffolk County and found that utilization rates were steadily rising and stood at 98.19% at the time HUD rejected the application. Rockhall prepared a 61-page narrative report that comprehensively refuted the HUD economist’s claim that there was insufficient demand for the home. 

Outcome

HUD agreed with Rockhall and issued the commitment. When the $45 million loan closed, a senior HUD official commented that “HUD just doesn’t have the resources to do the kind of analysis that Rockhall provided.” At that time, Rockhall had two employees.