NEW GERMANY - A New Brunswick-based firm has secured the contract to expand a seniors' home in this community.

 Maxim 2000 of Saint John, which has an office in Dartmouth, had the lowest amount of seven tendered bids for the work at Rosedale Home for Special Care.

 Rosedale administrator Valerie Veinot wouldn't disclose Maxim's bid but said the project budget is $4.25 million. Maxim hopes to hire as many local subcontractors as possible, she said.

 Located on Highway 10, Rosedale is adding a new 12-bed wing and renovating and relocating administrative areas and doubling the size of their kitchen.

 Their generator and the shed it's in and other items will find new places to go and additional land will be cleared for parking, Ms Veinot said.

 Rosedale officials and the successful bidder meet again mid-December to go over the proposed construction schedule. Work could begin as early as December 22.

 Construction will take place mostly on the west side of the building, furthest away from Highway 10.

 The new beds will be located in private rooms, Ms Veinot said.

 "There will be some juggling as to how we co-ordinate all that," she explained. "I'm thinking that, hopefully, we can be into the new and then do the renos."

 Officials plan a sod-turning ceremony for the new year.

 New Germany area municipal Councillor Cathy Moore said in a previous interview she looks forward to seeing the long-awaited expansion take place.

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 The MacDonald Conservative government promised in 2007 to open 115 new long-term-care beds in Lunenburg County within the next three years.

 This was part of a broader province-wide announcement of more than 800 beds bound for various communities.

 Most of the county beds are bound for Bridgewater where the Halifax-based firm Shannex is building a 65-bed long-term-care facility off Hollingsworth Drive. That building is scheduled to open next spring.

 Rosedale is a provincially licenced, 29-bed long-term-care facility, one of five such facilities in the county. They celebrated their 25th birthday in May.

posted on 12/01/09