Onyx Fall-Winter 2017

BY DIANNE FRANCES D. POWELL

Coming from a close-knit family of 12 children, McCord said her mother, whom she lost as a teenager, would have been proud of her for this initiative. McCord left a good job at Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis to pursue the idea. “I left Athens many years ago and had a very prosperous career,” McCord said. “If it wasn’t me who would bring something like this back, who would?” “Why not me?” “I hope that this will create a community space for everyone to come together —young and old,” she said. “I also hope this project inspires others to take a chance and build a new business within the community.”

14 units and a huge common area) has been completed, and residents moved in this past summer. The place was designed to feel both like home and a social venue. “The town does not have a senior center,” McCord said. “So, we hope to become kind of the senior hub here in Athens.” McCord, also a 2009 Woods Online business administration graduate, did not forget her beloved Woods throughout this process. A chapel in the facility is furnished with items — pews, a baby grand piano, statues and crucifixes — that she acquired when the Sisters of Providence auctioned off the contents of the now decommissioned Owens Hall.

need to move in to an assisted living facility, they were having to move 20-30 miles away. That makes it harder for families to be able to visit them” and they become disconnected from the community, McCord said. After conversations about this need with her sister, Lori Zettler, now a co- owner of the facility, McCord researched assisted living regulations and models for her business plan. The plan further developed with the involvement of other partners and supporters, and in 2015, Athenian Properties, LLC was created. In early 2016, construction began on phase one of the designed 28-apartment assisted living complex. Phase one (which includes

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