Emeritus at Vickery Towers is working to relocate its 243 residents with plans to close the facility on July 15. The retirement home, which includes assisted living, independent living and memory care, has operated off Lower Greenville and Belmont since 1968.
Spokesperson Summer Hammerle says they wanted to provide a more modernized community (larger commons areas, a movie theater, etc.), but the cost to renovate the old building is just too great.
“It’s almost impossible for us to do,” she says. “It’s the right thing to do for our residents.”
The building is held to the code from when it was built. Vickery Towers has received a waiver through Fire Safety Evaluation System that means it provides an equivalent level of safety as the current standards.
The building is deemed safe, but the waiver isn’t permanent.
“There’s no guarantee that we can keep that variance,” Hammerle says. “That could change at any time.”
Hammerle says the residents took the news of the closing well. Vickery Towers is working to place them in the 15 other Emeritus communities in Dallas-Fort Worth as well as partnering with additional senior living homes.
“It’s a loss to our residents,” she says. “It’s very personal for so many people.”
In 2011, we wrote about two residents Melvin and Lora Martin as part of our annual senior-focused issue. The couple — aged 91 and 89 at the time, got married at Vickery Towers during a heartwarming ceremony. The Advocate was there to capture video of the heartwarming ceremony.
