ALBANY, Ga. (WALB) -After 12 years of service, the Sowega Council on Aging is selling its Regional Resource Center to Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital. This transition marks a major shift in how senior services are delivered across Southwest Georgia.

Sowega leaders said the sale is the result of an eight-year restructuring process designed to shift the nonprofit away from directly operating programs and instead coordinating services through local partners in the service area.

“We’re now going to be selling this facility and moving into administrative offices only,” Izzie Sadler, the executive director of the Sowega Council on Aging, said.

Sadler said the sale will not reduce services for seniors. Instead, they plan to reinvest their operating costs into expanded programs: case management, homemaker services, and home-delivered meals.

“People are going to see us becoming more embedded in their communities and working on a more local level to deliver services through trusted partners,” Sadler said.

Sadler said moving away from their centralized building will improve access to services throughout the region— many of these areas, she said, she considers underserved.

She informed that the small number of in-person classes currently held at the facility will be relocated to partner sites such as churches or recreation centers.

“I want our clients to be reassured that no services will be eliminated,” Sadler said. “As a matter of fact, our services will grow... This is all about access to services—so people can receive the help they need closer to their neighborhoods.”

Phoebe to use the building for residency expansion

Phoebe leaders said the hospital plans to take over the building to expand medical residency programs, a move they say will help address physician shortages in Southwest Georgia.

“Where a physician does their residency, they’re more likely to stay,” Phoebe CEO and President Scott Steiner said. “So we need to create more residency training programs here in Albany.”

Steiner said the Council on Aging center approached the hospital when it began seeking buyers for the property.

He said the building will be used primarily for administrative and instructional space tied to residency training programs. Through a partnership with Morehouse School of Medicine, Phoebe plans to add more than 100 residency slots to the community over the next six years.

“This program will bring 30 to 50 new jobs to Albany, not including the residents themselves,” Steiner said.

Community impact and timeline

Some community members have expressed skepticism about Phoebe’s expansion into another facility. Steiner addressed those concerns.

“I also understand that some people may feel like something is being taken away. But the Council on Aging has been incredibly gracious and has a solid plan to continue providing—and even expanding—services, just in a different way,” he said.

The sale is expected to be finalized within the next 60 to 90 days. Phoebe plans to occupy the building shortly after, while Sowega continues finalizing plans for its new administrative location, which has not yet been publicly disclosed.

“Our providers are working in the community every day, and that won’t stop just because we’re changing facilities,” Sadler said.

“Phoebe Putney is owned by the people of Dougherty County,” Steiner said. “We are here to be good stewards of that trust.”

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