‘A good time to pass the torch’

Marvin Plakut came to Episcopal Homes as CEO in 1999, at a time when the eldercare institution was facing serious challenges.  

“Our industry on a national level was undergoing a major transformation,” Plakut recalled. “Here in St. Paul, Episcopal Home was doing good work operating a stand-alone nursing home, but single purpose organizations like ours were no long financially viable.”

If his agency was to thrive in the new century, Plakut knew it needed a more substantial financial foundation. A former executive with a large Twin Cities healthcare organization, Plakut went to work adding new services and doubling the size of his organization’s University Avenue campus. Now, after 25 years on the  job,  Episcopal Home’s long-time leader is retiring.

During his years as CEO, Plakut’s  most enduring achievement involved some deft maneuvering through the City of St. Paul’s regulatory thicket. That chapter in ECH history involved the organization’s next-door neighbor, one of University Avenue’s most iconic landmarks,  Porky’s Drive-in.

Over the years,  ECH leaders had eyed  Porky’s as a potential expansion site, but the eatery’s owners had rebuffed  several offers to sell off their University Avenue property.  Then  in 2012, the current owner, Nora Truelson had a change of heart. “That year, Nora came knocking on my door, saying that she was ready to sell,“ Plakut recalled. “We were a willing buyer; they were a willing seller. Both sides were able to agree on a purchase price, so the deal seemed straight forward, except it wasn’t.”

As the negotiation were wrapping up,  Plakut leaned that the Porky’s site was eligible to be included on the city’s Register of Historic Places. Historic eligibility triggered an extensive regulatory review.  Once the review started,  Plakut could receive no assurances from the city that he would, in fact, be able to clear the site and build a new Episcopal Homes facility there.

At that  point, it looked like the Porky’s deal was unraveling. “I went back to Nora and told her we couldn’t take on the risk,” Plakut said. “But I did say that we would sign a purchase agreement contingent on city approval of our construction plan.“

Eventually, the deal got back on track when Truelson learned that she could demolish the drive-in and sell the vacant site to Episcopal Homes. “City rules said that we couldn’t demolish the site after we bought it,  but Nora could, while she still owned it. That’s exactly what happened,” Plakut said.  

Truelson cleared the site before selling the property to Episcopal Homes, but she was able to save the 1940s-era drive-in building by moving it to an outdoor building museum west of St. Paul.

The Porky’s site enabled Plakut and Episcopal Homes to construct  a new $145 million building across University Avenue from the Fairview LRT station. Known as Midway Village, the facility included a pre-school day care center, a therapeutic swimming pool, a skilled nursing home and two independent living apartment developments,  one affordable and the other market rate.

 

A half dozen years after Midway Village opened in 2014, Plakut faced his most serious crisis as the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged nursing homes all across the country. “Luckily, we were not hit as hard by the pandemic because of the way our nursing homes and senior residences were configured,” he recalled.

“In 2005, we expanded our nursing home and created all private rooms. That made an important difference. With no shared rooms, we were able to isolate our residents and protect them, as best we could, from the spread of the disease.

“At the same time, we were immediately in alignment with federal and state guidelines. When Dr. Fauci and the Department of Health spoke, we listened.” 

 Plakut and his staff worked to isolate the residents by creating five zones on their University Avenue campus. Residents and staff stayed within their zones as much as possible. Episcopal Homes staff also bought groceries for residents  in order to limit their exposure to the outside world.     

“We also worked to mitigate the loneliness that so many of our people experienced,” Plakut noted. “We  gave an iPad to anyone who wanted it. We encouraged people to telephone and write cards to their friends and family members. We did whatever we could to keep people emotionally healthy while we were in a lock-down.”

While Plakut and Episcopal Homes came through the Covid pandemic relatively unscathed, the eldercare organization has had to deal with another major problem facing the nursing home industry: a shortage of qualified workers  “We do have something of a competitive advantage when it comes to attracting staff  because of our location at the Fairview LRT station. People looking for work in our industry have  a quick and easy way to get here using mass transit, particularly if they lived in and around St. Paul.”

 

After 25 years on the job, Plakut can look back at a career that has brought about major changes in St. Paul’s Midway District. In addition to its two skilled nursing homes, Episcopal Homes now operates more than 500 senior housing units on its main campus and at two off campus sites. In addition, the eldercare agency provides 650 jobs at its St. Paul location.

With Plakut’s retirement, Tom Henry,  Episcopal Home’s chief financial officer, will take on the top leadership role as president and CEO of the 130-year-old non-profit organization. In a letter to members of the Episcopal Homes community, Plakut said he is “very proud of the continuum of care and affordability we have created on University Avenue.” 

He added, “Whether you live here on our main campus, or just up University Avenue at Kings Crossing or Carty Heights, we have done this together. Episcopal Homes currently has the strongest employee and management teams since my tenure began - not to mention the best residents! We also have an exceptional board for strong governance. 

“So, it is a good time to pass the torch.”