Brookdale Edina

This lively community is a great place to explore both old and new interests. The staff and residents have smiles and an open attitude of compassion and service. This is a beautiful place for me to begin a new chapter in my life.

Good be place to work.kudos

I feel compelled to share my experiences regarding the ineffective and incapable Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system at Brookdale Edina, an 18-story upscale Minneapolis Senior Living establishment. This affects residents living in memory care, assisted living, and independent living. This HVAC problem especially affects the residents in the south-facing apartments. The north facing apartments are similarly affected, but to a lesser degree. My recommendation to potential residents, at a minimum, would be to avoid the apartments on the south-facing side of the building. For the past 1.5 years I, along with most other residents, have endured very uncomfortable indoor air temperature extremes from the sun, especially during the transition between warmer and cooler months. The system only allows the chiller OR the heating system to be "ON" at any one time. Not both. It's not like an HVAC system at home where the system maintains an even temperature. During a period of about a month, when we still need air conditioning during the transition to fall & winter weather, the chiller was turned off about a month too early. That left us with no air conditioning during the fall weather that remained quite warm. This also occurs in the spring when management fails to turn the chiller on until we are well into the summer heat. Management has consistently mismanaged the HVAC system, resulting in a total lack of air conditioning capabilities when it was needed between seasons. It is unacceptable that in an upscale senior living community like this, that residents must cope with indoor temperatures soaring to 85°F during the day, and 80°F at night. This not only affects our comfort, but can also have serious implications for the health of our senior disabled residents. It impacts on our ability to relax, to sleep, or just be comfortable. We do have windows that open, but they should not need to be relied on in this senior home where many residents are unable to open or close them. Yet, opening the windows is management's recommended solution to this heat problem. Noise from the open windows also needs to be considered in that the south-facing apartments overlook the busy I-494 freeway near France Avenue. The traffic noise I don't know I'm just my thoughts from the trucks, motorcycles, cars, and extensive highway construction below makes having the windows open an offensive, ineffective, and unreasonable option. My belief is that management is trying to save money by not turning on the chiller for the air conditioning system when we are getting into warm weather in the spring, and turning it off too early in the fall. This affects the health and comfort of the residents. We are paying a premium to live here, yet we are being forced to live with these second rate HVAC conditions.