FORT DODGE — The now shuttered Villa Care Center and Villa Cottages have been bought by the nearby Marian Home and Village.

The Villa Care Center, 2721 10th Ave. N., will be demolished this year, according to Tracy Trotter, the administrator of the Marian Home. She said the property will be saved for future development of senior citizen housing.

The Villa Cottages, 925 Martin Luther King Drive, will be completely remodeled in a project expected to start this year, she said. Once the remodeling is complete, the building will again be used as an assisted living facility

The purchase was closed last Thursday.

“When the opportunity to purchase these properties came up, we just couldn’t resist it,” she said.

The former Villa Care Center and Villa Cottages are just a few blocks northeast of the Marian Home and Village at 2400 Sixth Ave. N.

The Marian Home and Village also owns property on its north side that will eventually be used for expansion. The facility took over the road behind it, Seventh Avenue North between 23rd and 25th streets, after the City Council gave up its ownership of it in January. The Marian Home owns all the houses on that block.

The Villa Care Center closed in February after the last resident was relocated.

It had been placed into legal receivership the previous month at the request of the state Department of Inspections and Appeals, after its owner, New Jersey based Blue Care Homes LLC, reported that it was unable or unwilling to operate it and a few other care facilities in Iowa.

Blue Care Homes LLC owned the facility for about a year. Under previous owner QHC Facilities, the Villa Care Center was placed on a list of the worst nursing homes in the nation by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.The nursing home had been fined about $675,000 for numerous violations of the rules governing its operations and care of its residents.