Wednesday, March 8, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
21
Sisters senior living facilities in limbo
By Jim Cornelius
News Editor
Building permits have
been ready to pick up at City
Hall since summer of 2015
for developer Mark Adolf and
Pinnacle Alliance Group’s
planned senior assisted-living
facility on property adjacent
to Sisters’ post office. They
have never been picked up,
despite repeated assurances
from Adolf that the project
was on track.
Now Adolf has been hit
with a consent order from
the Washington Department
of Financial Institutions
Securities Division requiring
that he cease and desist from
multiple violations associated
with his efforts to finance
an assisted-living project in
Sisters.
A competing project at
McKenzie Meadows Village
(MMV) — plans for which
date back to 2011 — is now
off the table.
“We pulled the plug,”
said Kevin Cox of owner of
Ageia Health Services, who
was brought on board in 2015
after the McKenzie Meadows
Village partners — the Reed,
Willitts and Kallberg fami-
lies of Sisters — declined to
renew a contract with Adolf,
who had spearheaded their
effort to build a facility at
the west end of Sisters near
Sisters High School since
2009.
Adolf filed land-use
appeals against the MMV
project and filed suit against
Cox and Ageia Health
Services for allegedly steal-
ing his plans
That suit was settled,
because he was unwilling to
continue to pay ongoing legal
bills, Cox told The Nugget.
“It was a half-a-million-
dollar lesson for me,” Cox
said of the now-defunct
MMV project. “I spent half
a million dollars, half of that
being legal (between land-use
actions and the lawsuit).”
Adolf did not respond by
press time to inquiries from
The Nugget regarding the sta-
tus of his project, but given
the circumstances it does not
appear that any large-scale
facility is on the near horizon.
City of Sisters Community
Development Director Patrick
Davenport concurred that no
project appears imminent.
“As far as the facility — it
looks like we’re quite a ways
from getting one,” he told
The Nugget.
More than the senior-
living facilities are in limbo.
The annexation agreement
between MMV and the City
of Sisters requires that the
senior-living facility be
developed before any other
aspect of the project can get
underway — including other
housing.
“We don’t know what the
future holds,” Bill Willitts
told The Nugget. “We know
we have to start all over. We
have to start from square
one.”
Davenport said that the
City and MMV are trying to
work out a way forward.
“That’s something we’re
trying to work out with our
legal team and their legal
team, so if they want to do
that (move forward with other
aspects of the development)
we can figure out what that
looks like,” Davenport said.
Willitts said that the part-
ners believe that Adolf might
continue to appeal any land-
use action on their part.
“If we do assisted liv-
ing, it’s a certainty,” he said.
“If it’s residential, it’s a
possibility.”
Something will have to
be worked out at some stage,
because the annexation agree-
ment “goes with the land” and
would apply to anyone trying
to develop the property.
PHOTO BY JIM CORNELIUS
The school-based health clinic is the only piece of McKenzie Meadows
Village that has gotten off the ground in over 15 years.
Davenport said that the
City could revise the annexa-
tion agreement or — since
the property has long been
annexed into the city limits —
they could devise a develop-
ment agreement to supersede
the annexation agreement.
So far, despite years of
planning and hearings, the
only development on the
property has been a school-
based health clinic.
“It’s been quite a trail
that hasn’t gone very far,”
Davenport said.
Willitts is looking back on
a difficult 15-year process.
“We thought we might
have an assisted-living facil-
ity for Cliff Clemens (a lead-
ing Sisters citizen who died
in 2008 at the age of 101),”
Willitts said. “That was our
battle cry.”
Davenport said that the
City is committed to finding
a way forward.
“We want that property to
be developed. We need hous-
ing; it’s right next to the high
school. We want something
to happen there. We’ll keep
working on it.”
After 15 years and many
battles, Willitts said, “I think
we’re going to take the course
of least resistance, whatever
that is.”
After multiple inquiries
by phone and email by The
Nugget, Mark Adolf declined
to answer questions in regard
to the status of his project.
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