TEGA CAY A $30 million assisted living community will be built in Tega Cay, officials announced Monday.

Wellmore, a 130,000 square foot community, will be built in the Stonecrest development, with frontage on Hwy. 160 West. It will offer assisted living apartments, memory care and skilled nursing services, as well as a 25,000 square-foot community clubhouse and wellness center for residents.

Construction is expected to begin in July 2012. Wellmore, part of Charlotte-based Senior Living Communities, is anticipated to open in January 2014.

“It will take our seniors who are used to experiencing ‘The Good Life’ and when their health requires a little more attention, they usually leave the good life and go somewhere else,” Mayor George Sheppard said.

“Now they won’t have to leave the good life – they can move into this assisted living facility,”

Wellmore will bring 130 jobs to the area, including nursing positions, quality management jobs, administrators and direct care providers. Hiring will begin four to five months before the facility opens, officials said Monday.

Job fairs will likely be held in the summer of 2013, Chief Communications Officer Katie Huffstetler said.

Wellmore will increase the City of Tega Cay’s tax base, said Sheppard, which will help the city continue to manage its contingency fund.

“I don’t know what the increase will be, but it is commercial property being built in the city in Tega Cay. It will increase the tax base,” Sheppard said.

Wellmore will provide “purpose-based wellness programming,” which employs physical activity and nutrition as a way to help seniors maintain their independence as they age.

“We want to keep people as independent as possible,” Huffstetler said.

Wellness programming helps senior adults manage chronic disease and recover from “negative health events,” such as broken bones or an accident.

“We hope Wellmore will be a way to say, ‘Yes, I need a little assistance but I want to manage my own care long term,’” Huffstetler said.

The healthcare buildings will be organized into “neighborhoods,” with a central nursing station and dining room. Residents will have the same caregivers day after day, Huffstetler said, and also will dine together.

“We don’t want folks to move into a center that is like a hospital. We want it to feel like home,” Huffstetler said.

The Tega Cay campus will be the company’s flagship model for the Wellmore assisted living communities.

“We have a fantastic workforce to pull from here, a municipality that understands development and growth and we have the opportunity to serve a growing need here in a way that has not been done before,” Huffstetler said.

In addition to the Tega Cay campus, at least four Wellmore communities are planned for South Carolina.

Senior Living Communities also owns and operates 12 retirement communities in the Southeast and Midwest.

Wellmore will have to apply to DHEC for a Certificate of Need to operate skilled nursing services, but CEO Donald Thompson said that he is confident a need for those services exists in York County.