Lifespark Senior Living

We toured this location when we were looking into care options for our loved ones. This was a nice enough looking community, and the staff we spoke with were all friendly. We were impressed by the size of the rooms you get, the assisted living section had nicely sized private apartments. We didn't get a chance to tour the memory care facilities here.

I liked the private rooms with private bathrooms for everyone in Memory Care. A definite possibility.

Did not see staff around, beautiful apts...food seemed way below expectations of priced meals.

The staff of the Waters was quick to respond to our needs for our father. Since this was going to be a quick move for us they helped us along through the process. They gave us the full tour /gave our father a medical evaluation and then sat us down to work out a plan for a 2 week initial period with a evaluation sit-down at the end of this period. We will be having this meeting within the next few days. We looked at least 4 different assisted living facilities within a 1 week period [I would recommend this to everyone] but eventually settled on The Waters for several reasons. It is a newer facility---is close to our home making it easier to go see Dad more often---he grew up in the area the Waters is located so it is a familiar area for him to relate to---most of the residents are also from the area--the staff is more than willing to work with us to make sure our father is comfortable and safe. Since he has been there only a short time this review is only based on what we have experienced so far.

Looked good on my list for final possibility. Primarily because of proximity to home. Lacks spiritual component.

Really liked this facility. Great amenities, active residents. Concerned about ability to monitor someone with memory care.

My loved one has only been at this community a short while. There are couple of things - they could wear name tags more consistently. I would like a sign going into the memory care as you’re going in, so you know who is on staff today. I think they are doing a really good job. It’s very small – I like the size of it. There was an open door policy – you can go anytime you want. I like it very much. I looked at a lot of different places - price was a consideration. There are people to chit chat with for him. Community is a helpful thing for people to have. Really friendly.

I'm overall happy with it. It was the best decision I could have made for my parents. I think they're in a good spot for their age. They are just doing the housing with services right now. Having that one meal a day has been great. I'm kind of concerned about the turnover of the staff. That's really the only concern. They have bigger apartments with a full kitchen which I like.

Wait times for help are too long, often 10 to 30 minutes. The staff could be more attentive to the residents' needs. Cleaning of my apartment is not great. Dusting doesn't happen and floor cleaning is spotty. Catholic services don't seem to be offered every week. Wheelchairs into the building have to go over a bump. I've communicated about it with management multiple times, but no improvements are made. Sometimes the food isn't warm. My suggestion: pay attention to the smaller details, which can be important to me. Maybe not to everyone, but to me.

Staff is friendly, meals are normally very good with some occasional issues due to lack of staffing on weekends. Communication with families could be better. Move in was great. I would recommend the facility. An improvement would be a 'portal' for the families to see what their folks are up to, care plan, checklist, meds, etc.

I would say there seems to be turn over in there staffing, recently it was maintenance and now the cleaning personnel. I would say the staff isn't super quick to help if there is a situation where they are called to a unit. The food was great in the beginning and has declined more recently. I feel they are always trying to improve in ways and the staff I have dealt with has been nice. It's a very nice place for the most part.

I am writing as a child of parents who have resided at Cardinal View. One parent in an independent apartment and the other in the memory care area. This is a new facility, and it is very lovely - clean and cheeful. The second floor dining room is bright and feels like a restaurant setting. The staff are friendly and efficient. Enjoy them very much. BUT, the Minnesota corporation that owns this facilty, Lifespark, has stringent rules where certain health decisions are concerned. For example, even after Madison hospitals and clinics and other senior living places dropped the "mask mandates" in spring of 2023, Lifespark continued to insist on them. This was extremely unpleasant for everyone - residents, staff and family visitors. And now, once again, as of [date removed] , masks are being required. It doesn't matter that masks have been shown to be ineffective, everyone must "mask up" and converse with muffled voices, and be deprived of seeing smiles. Harmful to emotional health!

They would have a lot more people use Lifespark if they had a concierge service for residents. Their Lifespark services were complicated and hard to access. It was difficult to determine what services were available and what was not. Literature to access services such as transportation were hard to locate. Billion different numbers for different services. Staff were great. Helpful and engaged. Location was not great. Isolated with not much around to enjoy. Design was nice but not well suited for those with mobility issues. For example the elevators banked directly into benches that would easily have been moved to a corner but weren't because it didn't look as nice. But the benches made it difficult for those with walkers or scooters to turn into the elevators.

Hamilton House Senior Living is a beautiful facility and the public spaces are very clean. However, the housekeeping in the individual resident units is not great. It is supposed be done weekly, but it's done maybe once every three weeks in our experience. The food is great. The activities could be more varied. More music activities would be nice. The staffing is probably like all places - not enough. Some of the caregivers are fantastic and others are just okay. We had some delay in care during the first couple of weeks. We were frustrated that while they said they would investigate, no mention of trying to do better in the future. Definitely no apology. I don't get communication from the staff . Perhaps no news is good news? The Nursing Director was very responsive the first two weeks, but after that I need to search her out for questions/answers.

Harrison Bay Senior Living is advertised as smoking permitted, however, the back door the elderly need to go out is not electronically hooked up to an automatic door opener. It is a heavy metal fire door. The elderly cannot open the door nor manage to navigate in and out of the building with a walker. In fact other than the front door, there is no automatic doors for any of the elders to easily go outside to enjoy the back patio, as well as the smoking area. Return calls from the Assistant Director of Health Services [name removed], does NOT return calls timely if at all. I’ve been waiting for four (4) days (from today), for an answer to one question I had and have left two messages requesting a call back... Crickets Harrison Bay Senior Living is hugely understaffed for kitchen duties. Often times residence wait up to an hour to get waited on in the dining room.

Facility was very nice but felt she was more focused on Assisted Living rather than memory care. Also was going to follow up with me on a few things I had asked about but I never heard anything back on those.

The staff were all very friendly and it is a clean facility with good food. We felt there was not much privacy, people would walk into my loved ones room unannounced. There was no call buttons which we felt was unusual. It seemed to be all about the business and less about the residents.

The care services were really good before COVID, however now it is a little hard to get information from them sometimes because they are having to follow the restrictions. Right now the meals are being delivered to the residences rooms.

Minnehaha Senior Living could improve so they make communication a little easier. The communication between the staff and the residents family is not that great. I usually have to call to get any information. It would be nice to establish regular communication with them. There also seems to be a language barrier but I am not sure how to get passed that. My dad really struggles with it.

Our family visited the landmark and it was a very nice community with nice staff, and clean grounds we found the community to be a bit high out of our price range. I would recommend anyone to visit as they might fit some of the care needs to the families unfortunatly not ours.