Rivington House, the nursing home for AIDS patients, shut down in November of last year. Now a new owner has taken over the building at 45 Rivington St., and is preparing to re-open the facility as a nursing home for the general population.
The Allure Group, a for-profit company with locations in Brooklyn, Queens and Harlem will soon debut the Rivington Center for Nursing & Rehabilitation. Yesterday, workers were getting the building ready to accept new residents.
Rivington House’s former owner, VillageCare, decided to end operations at the Lower East facility after 20 years because the nursing home had been half empty for some time. Officials with the organization said that advances in AIDS treatments made Rivington House obsolete. All of the patients were relocated late last year. Community Board 3 and City Council member Margaret Chin had advocated for a new nursing facility at the location. Some feared that the 1898 former school building alongside Sara D. Roosevelt Park could fall into the hands of a luxury real estate developer.
The Lower East Side home has 200+ beds. We have a call into the new owner for additional information. We’ll update this story if and when we hear back.
