Hospice House to undergo $3.5M renovation

A facility that serves a critical role in the community by providing respite care and helping manage serious symptoms in hospice patients soon will be getting a $3.5 million upgrade to better serve patients and their families.

Tri-Cities Chaplaincy’s Hospice House at 2108 W. Entiat Ave. in Kennewick, built in 1996, is the only inpatient hospice facility serving Benton and Franklin counties.

Renovations on the 10-bed facility are set to begin in May. To get the work done efficiently, Hospice House will have to close for four to six months. However, Chaplaincy has no intentions of letting its patients down during that time.

The Richland-based nonprofit can provide continuous home care, said Alane Wilkerson, marketing and communications supervisor, and Tara Divers, Chaplaincy’s director of philanthropy, said they are working with some skilled nursing facilities to keep a few beds available for Chaplaincy’s patients. 

“We’ll still be able to serve them. They will still get the support and comfort fully. … We’re not leaving anyone high and dry on care,” Wilkerson said. 

The nonprofit considered trying to maintain operations while renovating, Divers said, but the disruption for patients coupled with additional expenses made it best to simply close.

Chaplaincy once considered building a new Hospice House adjacent to its administrative office at 1480 Fowler St. in the Richland Wye area, and the nonprofit started and stopped a fundraising campaign a few times, but due to high construction costs, it decided the project wasn’t feasible, Divers said. 

Instead, Chaplaincy decided that renovating the existing Hospice House was more affordable, cutting the price tag from around $18 million to $3.5 million. In fact, selling the land once set for the new Hospice House will help fund the renovations of the current one. It’s listed for $779,000 and a sale was pending in late April.

Two grants from the Washington State Department of Commerce will contribute $1.2 million to the project, and the remainder will come from community donations. 

Donations to the Hospice House renovation can be made online at tccbestlife.org/hospice-house-renovation-project.

Tri-City families also have strong emotions attached to Hospice House so choosing to renovate it rather than relocate it will honor those memories, Divers said.

Reconfiguring spaces

The renovation will extend the entryway by about 1,000 square feet, allowing for a double-door entrance so cold air doesn’t flow into patient rooms in the wintertime. 

It also will create more space for a fireside room, a place for people to sit and for families to view the name of their loved one on a memory wall that will be moved into the space. 

On the other side of the entrance, the nurse station will be expanded. Currently, several nurses are seated at small desks in the hallway. The expansion will give them more space and privacy. 

The renovation also will include a private space for important and sometimes difficult conversations staff must have with families.

The kitchen space is one of Hospice House’s central features, enabling staff and volunteers to cook for patients and families, from chili to cookies. As the nurse workstation expands, the kitchen will move into space currently occupied by four underused offices. It will be bigger and more user-friendly, Divers said. 

“The kitchen is the heart and soul of the House,” she said. “You know, our volunteers are in it, our care team’s in it, making food and making it feel like home. So that kitchen needs a huge upgrade and more space.”

The underused family kitchen farther back in the building will be converted into a staff lounge, and a new chapel space will be created closer to the entrance.

A $3.5 million renovation of Tri-Cities Chaplaincy’s Hospice House, built in 1996, will include the addition of a fireside room near the entryway, a new chapel space, additional space for nurse workstations, an expanded kitchen and upgrades to patient rooms.

| Photo by Rachel Visick

The patient rooms also will see improvements, with a computer added to each room in addition to aesthetic updates. The six original rooms have small patios overlooking a courtyard, and additional patios may be added to two of the four other rooms.

Each of the six current patios is big enough for the patient’s entire bed to be wheeled out onto it so that patients can enjoy sunshine and fresh air.

That’s part of the driving idea behind Hospice House. “It’s a home-like environment,” Divers said. “It’s not like a hospital stay. We want patients and families to be as comfortable as they can here, and our courtyard is beautiful, so we want to spend some time out here.”

Bouten Construction Co. is the general contractor for the renovation work, and the Richland-based company has been great at understanding the need to stay closed for a short period of time, Divers said.

Renata Presby of ALSC is the architect, and Chaplaincy’s CEO Laurie Jackson said Presby’s husband was part of one of the first families to get the Hospice House going. 

“So it has kind of come full circle, that now Renata is our architect,” she said. “She gets it. She completely gets it.”

Chaplaincy is also taking care of Hospice House staff during the remodeling. Of Chaplaincy’s staff of 100, 14 are dedicated to the Kennewick facility, but the nonprofit is working to ensure they have roles to step into during the temporary closure.

Chaplaincy owns the Hospice House building, which is also home to Cork’s Place Kids Grief Center, and leases the land for a nominal fee from next-door First Lutheran Church of Kennewick.

Hospice House history 

While Chaplaincy provides much of its hospice care in patients’ homes, if symptoms are severe or if a caregiver needs a break, the Hospice House can help. 

The facility isn’t meant for permanent stays, but it fulfills an important role. Patients can stay in Hospice House for up to five days to give a caregiver a chance to take a break or step back and be just a family member again.

If a patient comes in with symptoms that can’t be managed at home, the goal is to get that person comfortable enough to return home again.

Chaplaincy was founded more than 50 years ago when a group of congregations saw a need for end-of-life care and chaplain services, Divers said. The Hospice House, initially built by volunteers, was meant to be a space for patients to live out their days if they chose. Later, as Medicare and Medicaid changed rules, the Hospice House became more temporary.

“Over 70% of Americans surveyed would like to die at home if they’re given the opportunity, but … 73% don’t get the opportunity to die at home, and the majority of them die in hospitals,” Jackson said. “So hospice has an opportunity to change that.” 

Chaplaincy serves 145 to 150 hospice patients each day. Of the 3,179 patients Chaplaincy has served since 2022, 20% have used the Hospice House.

Hospice care doesn’t just serve patients’ medical needs, but is required to provide physical, emotional and spiritual care, Jackson said.

Care doesn’t stop with a patient’s death, either, Divers pointed out. Chaplaincy has a bereavement program that follows families for 13 months after losing their loved one.