Rumors and Phase II

For well over a year the Kendal community has been following the development of plans for Kendal's expansion. Not surprisingly, an undertaking of this sort -- we call it "Phase II" -- has been concentrating the attention of residents. Groundbreaking is scheduled for the middle of this coming summer. Once Phase II is under way, it will bring construction machinery with its attendant surprises and inconveniences to the community; and, when the project is completed, it will have brought us new neighbors, wider opportunities, and an expanded range of activities. We can all anticipate -- with shifting combinations of joy, excitement, puzzlement, and irritation -- eighteen transformative months.

No one can quarrel with the need for expansion. Envisioned from the inception of the Kendal at Granville project, it will involve building over twenty new apartment units and adding significantly to that section of our campus that provides care for those in assisted living or in need of skilled nursing. We will also get a badly-needed Gathering Room. Improvements of this sort are predictable for any CCRC as it moves from its moment of opening into its era of developing maturity, and in carrying them out Kendal at Granville is declaring to the world that it is right on course as it advances from its infancy to its -- shall we say? -- adolescence. (I'm a hopeless addict of metaphors.)

From the beginning of the planning process, and at its very heart, there has been a commitment to a sharing of views among administrators, residents, trustees, architects, and project engineers -- all to the end of getting wise and frequent feedback from the various camps that have a stake or an interest in the project. This turns out to have been a smart way of proceeding. Happily, it's also very much the Kendal way. But as we've recently discovered, we can never be too attentive to the need to practice openness.

What has happened is this. As our groundbreaking approaches and excitement mounts, so does curiosity -- and curiosity feeds the human propensity for attending to rumors. And so we've rediscovered the old truth about big undertakings: it's crucial to get accurate information about the project out in order to forestall the rumors -- there are delays! oh no, there is a cancelation! -- before they acquire wings of their own.

I wouldn't be noting this down if we hadn't slipped up a bit. But having now chased down a few rumors and identified new or unused avenues for getting accurate information out to residents, we think we are back on top of the situation. From now on we'll be better at using our newsletter, our closed-circuit TV channel, our bulletin boards, our regular meetings, and postings to our boxes to keep the community updated. We all have enough drama in our lives without having to cope with misleading tales about our future. As is the Kendal way, we will allow truth, not confusion, to bind our community.