Incumbent MP for Calare Andrew Gee has taken time off the campaign trail to cut the ribbon on Maranatha House's newly renovated wing.
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The wing features twenty new lodging for residents, according to Maranatha's CEO Debra Matheson.
"The new wing has twenty individual apartments for residents, that mostly have high care needs, it has a couple of sitting rooms and a small dining room, as well as easy access to the main facility as well," Ms Matheson said.
The new area also features an unofficial 'chapel' which Ms Matheson says was inspired by her conversations with people at the facility many years ago.
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"When I first came here, our now resident chaplain spoke to me at length about having a nice, quiet place for people to have spiritual care, so we converted my old office during the renovations and so it's now part of that."
The renovations have incurred a significant cost due to the scope and the nature of the work that's been undertaken by the crew at Maranatha.
"It's roughly around $6 million dollars," Ms Matheson.
"For the whole thing, yeah, we did build a new bistro kitchen, today is also the launch of the actual bistro service in the kitchen."
The investment will also mean more jobs, with a stable of new staff members added to Maranatha's ranks in order to cater to the new services,
"We've employed approximately another forty odd staff members to accommodate the new rooms, the new meals and things like that."
During his remarks before cutting the ribbon at Maranatha House, Mr Gee congratulated everyone present for their hard work and noted that the aged care facility's new inter-generational care wing would make the facility one of very few in the world.
"It's going to be something truly unique and it will be a jewel of Wellington, mark my words, people will want to come and see this, you'll have academics wanting to come and see this and people from all over Australia coming to see it," Mr Gee said.
"I think it's symbolic of the forward thinking board and management that you have here."
Maranatha chairman John Trounce introduced Mr Gee and spoke about the importance of Maranatha as part of the community.
"It is so important that community driven organisations like Maranatha and others in town maintain their relationship with their community, and we are working very hard at that."
