Coming Soon - A Bigger and Better Bright Side Manor

A transformation is underway at Bright Side Manor in Teaneck – an expansion that will allow the non-profit-run community residence to respond to changing times and continue serving as one of the region’s few affordable assisted living alternatives.

Construction began in August on an 8,000-square-foot addition to Bright Side, which will create space for larger common areas, private resident rooms and additional office space, all of which are needed to support the more complex health care needs of its residents.
 
“Bright Side Manor has served as a community residence in Teaneck since about 1915,” said executive director Elizabeth Davis at a groundbreaking ceremony in October. “Built in 1892, its bones have survived for nearly 130 years, and for more than 11 decades, it has served as a community residence for older adults.

“Our residents back then were younger and more mobile and so it really worked for us,” Davis said. 

The typical assisted living population of today is older, frailer and less mobile than it was two decades ago, which is why larger, more adaptable common spaces are needed to accommodate on-site services such as physical therapy. This expansion of Bright Side also will create more private rooms to isolate and quarantine residents, if needed, for future disease outbreaks. 

“The COVID pandemic really drove the point home that we needed more space,” Davis said. 

The pandemic had a devastating toll on many long-term-care providers, especially those whose mission is to serve low- and moderate-income older and disabled adults. Several non-profit or government-run centers have closed their doors in the past year.

Bright Side has been able to buck that trend, thanks to the $4.5 million that its non-profit operator, Geriatric Services Inc. was able to raise for the expansion through new state government funding streams and the continued support of several philanthropies. 

The expansion project is expected to be completed in September 2022.

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