CHESTER-The Fox family, owner of The Orchards at Foxcrest, is expanding its nursing home operations into a second state with the acquisition of the Adkins Care Center in East Liverpool.

Brothers Scott and Jim Fox assumed ownership of the Armstrong Lane facility on Nov. 1, naming Matt Murray, a former intern at The Orchards at Foxcrest, as the administrator.

The new facility, called The Orchards of East Liverpool, incorporates the former Adkins Care Center, 709 Armstrong Lane, and a neighboring vacant building at 701 Armstrong Lane that is scheduled to reopen within the next 18 months, Scott Fox said.

“The Orchards is very excited about the addition of The Orchards of East Liverpool. We are very blessed with the opportunity to serve more seniors in the tri-state area,” Fox said.

The East Liverpool facility currently serves about 30 residents with the help of 40 employees. Once the second building opens, the Fox family hopes to add eight to 10 positions. Both buildings together are licensed by the state of Ohio to serve 50 residents.

“This is really an opportunistic move for us,” Fox said. “We’ve been preparing to grow for a long time, but, so far, most of that growth has been happening here (in Chester). … We heard through the grapevine that (Adkins) was planning on closing the facility, so we reached out to them.”

Because the Adkins Care Center was family-owned, like the Orchards, “they had a comfort level with us,” he said.

The Adkins Care Center was opened by Toney and Geraldine Adkins on Armstrong Lane in 1965, adding a second building in the early ’70s. They previously operated Geraldine’s Nursing Home on Thompson Avenue in the early 1960s.

Prior to the $1.1 million purchase by the Fox family, the East Liverpool facility was operated by the Adkinses’ daughter and son-in-law, Janice and Stanley Bowden.

“I’m excited for their new adventure,” Janice Bowden said. “It’s nice for us, as a four-generation family-owned business, that it’s selling to a family business.”

The Orchards started as Fox Nursing Home in downtown Chester in 1952. Founded by Scott and Jim Fox’s grandfather, James Fox, it moved to its current location off Pyramus Road in 1985 and expanded to include assisted living services in 1997.

Scott Fox said the East Liverpool facility will become part of the Fox “brand” of skilled nursing care. “We’re just basically copying what we do here and implementing it there as well,” he said. “Our plans are to renovate and upgrade both buildings.”

Anticipated changes include everything from technological upgrades to expanded menu offerings, Fox said. The renovation of the vacant building, which closed in 2010, is still in the design phase.

“We think we do what we do really well, so it makes sense for us to expand. We know our market and our seniors really well,” he said, noting that expanding into Ohio will help keep the Orchards economically viable.

Having another facility also may open up opportunities for the Orchards to specialize and offer services to clients who otherwise would have to travel out of the area, he said.

Fox said neither facility, in Chester or in East Liverpool, will be a “stand alone” center. “It really gives us a lot of efficiency of scale (to share staff and resources). It makes a lot of sense from an economic standpoint,” he said.

Fox said all of the employees at the Adkins Care Center were interviewed for new positions and 95 percent of them have stayed. Some jobs and responsibilities will be adjusted in the coming months, he said.

“As our census increases, we certainly will be adding positions,” he said.

A month since the purchase, Fox said he believes the management transition will go smoothly because the Orchards is family owned and Adkins Care Center was family owned.

“You could really tell that they cared about their residents,” Fox said. “The fact that they were family owned set them apart.”