BATH

USDA Rural Development Community Facility Program loans worth $10 million will assist the historic Plant Memorial Home in expanding its assisted senior care center here, U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-1st District, said Monday.

Pingree and USDA Rural Development State Director Virginia Manuel visited the facility at 1 Washington St. to make the announcement.

The funding will likely foot the entire bill — previously estimated at $9.2 million — of constructing a 50,000-square-foot addition with 45 new residential units at the assistedliving facility. The project will more than double the facility’s capacity to assist the area’s aging population. It currently has 37 units.

The facelift will be added to the southeast portion of a facility founded in 1917 by philanthropist Thomas Plant.

The expansion, when completed, will create an estimated 20 permanent positions, not including construction jobs; add more than $1 million into the local economy through the purchase of food, insurance, health care products, fuel and additional salaries; offer elder housing and health care opportunities in a state that is aging; save 37 elderly infirmed residents from being relocated; prevent 37 additional elders from entering MaineCare; and save 26 existing jobs at the Plant Home from elimination, Plant Home Executive Director Don Capaldo told The Times Record earlier this year.

There are two loans. One is a direct, $6 million loan from the Agriculture Department’s Rural Development department in Maine called a Community Facility Direct Loan. The other loan is a federally guaranteed $4 million loan from Androscoggin Bank, according to Manuel.

The loans are 40-year loans with interest rates below 4.75 percent. A construction “bridge loan” will cover phases post-construction before new residents can be moved in and begin paying rent.

“The funds we have to provide this type of loan has quadrupled in the last three years,” she said. “So we’ve been actively marketing the loans to municipalities, who see the value in accepting these low-interest funds for water and sewer systems, libraries, health clinics, and fire and police stations.”

Manuel said $24 million in such loans is available to Maine per year. “To be able to help more seniors is definitely a big goal of ours,” she said.

Pingree said she was pleased to announce the funding.

“Aging is just around the corner for all of us,” she said. “Or, if not for us, for our mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles. Maine has one of the most ‘elderly’ populations in the country, if not the most elderly population. It’s vital that more care facilities are available for our frail elderly.”