The Starkville Board of Aldermen is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a request by Florida Care Properties to build a new 8,500-square-foot building at the corner of North Montgomery Street and Womack Road.
The city”s planning and zoning commission on Oct. 12 unanimously recommended aldermen approve Florida Care”s conditional use request and a preliminary plat for the adult day training center less than a mile from its current location at 1417 Highway 389 N. Florida Care has offered training in horticulture, light woodworking, laundry, housekeeping, daily living and arts and crafts to clients with mental or physical disabilities since 1993, but has outgrown the facility on Highway 389.
Florida Care serves approximately 75 clients per day, but expects the total to increase to about 100 if plans for the new facility are approved.
The building to the immediate north of the proposed site is called “Angel Gardens” and initially was built for mentally challenged children. Over the years, those same children have reached adulthood and now attend training classes at Florida Care.
The building to the immediate west of the proposed site is called “Parker House” and is a group home where clients are not necessarily mentally challenged, but are physically handicapped and usually wheelchair-bound.
Further east is the Rolling Hills facility, which is commonly referred to as a nursing home, but really is an intermediate care facility for the mentally retarded. A majority of Florida Care”s clients live at Rolling Hills, while the remainder live in Angel Gardens or Parker House.
The new location would make transportation to Florida Care much easier for those residents, City Planner Ben Griffith said.
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