Schuylkill commissioners on Wednesday approved a letter of intent from a New Jersey investment firm to buy the county nursing home, Rest Haven, and its assets, for $10.9 million, after the initial buyer withdrew its offer.

The firm, Investment 360 of Lakewood, will pay a $500,000 deposit by May 21, with $100,000 nonrefundable. The firm was one of three front-runners in the sale of the 142-bed skilled nursing facility.Investment 360's original offer was $8.5 million. The new price includes the entire 55-acre parcel of land and other assets.The $10.9 million translates to $76,760 per bed. The average price per bed in Pennsylvania is $60,400.The sale is expected to become final in August. The firm will make needed capital improvements within two years of the sale.Investment 360 was chosen to buy the financially troubled facility after the previous buyer, Nationwide Health Care Services, of Brick, New Jersey, withdrew its offer of $12.25 million in March. The sale was to be finalized this month.Nationwide's withdrawal was a business decision that had nothing to do with the county or Rest Haven, said Mark Stewart of Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott, the Harrisburg law firm commissioners hired for $250,000 as special counsel for the sale."It was not reflective of Rest Haven. Rather it was more reflective of some misassumptions the company had made in their modeling," he said."Did we have a little bit of a hiccup? Yes, we did," said Commissioners' Chairman Frank J. Staudenmeier of the change in buyers.Investment 360 was among the three finalists for the sale, along with Nationwide and a New York firm that had offered $10 million.Commissioners had set a number of rules for the owner, including continuity of care.Investment 360 was neck-to-neck with Nationwide in the quest to be chosen as Rest Haven's new owner, said Commissioner Gary J. Hess.Staudenmeier described all three companies as "rock solid."Investment 360 owns several other skilled nursing facilities, including two in Pennsylvania. It has agreed to operate Rest Haven for at least 15 years, Stewart said.Last year, Investment 360 bought a bankrupt Philadelphia nursing center, Deer Meadows Retirement Community, for $30.25 million, and Butler County's 220-bed nursing home, Sunnyview, for $20.4 million."Not a single complaint," Stewart quoted Butler County Commissioners' Chairman William L. Carrier as saying in a presentation.The peopleOne of the firm's majority owners, Jonathan Bleier, started working at age 14 in the laundry of his father's nursing home."We're a medium-sized company with a small-town flavor," he said.Chief Operating Officer Lisa Sofia began her career as a licensed practical nurse."I want to promise you the care at Rest Haven will not change at all. We are dedicated to that. I also assure you that we will be outstanding stewards of all of the residents currently at Rest Haven, the future residents, the employees and the community," she said."We were very impressed as we were doing our due diligence on the care and the history of Rest Haven. I fell in love with the story of Rest Haven," Sofia said. "From the beginning of coming to visit and tour, we knew that this was a place that we really wanted to be a part of and invest in."Sofia said the sale "would not even be a blip on the screen" for the employees.Staudenmeier said choosing a buyer was a "long and tedious process."The three commissioners have said from the get-go of this entire process that the two most important entities are our residents and employees."He said commissioners and Investment 360 principals met Tuesday with residents and employees, and all concerned seemed pleased.Commissioner George F. Halcovage Jr. spoke of the promised continuity of the quality of care. The name Rest Haven will not change, he said.Hess said that the "quality of care is going to continue there, the employees are going to be taken care of. This is not just a property we're selling. It has a living, breathing heart."Commissioners on Aug. 20 announced they had decided to sell Rest Haven after learning the home, behind the Penn State campus along Route 61 in Schuylkill Haven, was running $4.6 million in the red.