Crestview Acres Inc

Pros

• The cook helped visitors locate a resident and walked them to his room.
• The staff made the transition as smooth as possible.
• Every staff member encountered was described as helpful, polite, and caring to residents and their families.
• Crestview Acres staff are praised as very special people who do their work.
• The staff are caring, work hard, and act with compassion.
• A family member described Crestview Acres as a safe environment and would recommend it to others.
• The facility encourages residents and families to share concerns so issues can be corrected.

Cons

• The property is in deplorable condition and has deteriorated greatly since the closure.
• The building is outdated and staff are disorganized, with unclear coordination.
• The facility misrepresented itself from the beginning and is not good in any way.
• The staff are very poorly staffed, with many hires from outside agencies.
• Residents were not cleaned promptly after accidents and could be found in feces.
• In the dining room, patients were lined up in deteriorating recliners, passed out, while others wandered.
• There were frequent failures to locate staff for help, leaving residents unsupervised, sometimes after falls.
• The food is bad and not conducive to dementia patients.

Review

Crestview Acres in Marion, Iowa has stood at the center of a long, uneasy conversation since its doors closed nearly three years ago. The conversations about the facility have a lived-in texture: an ongoing sense that the building's condition and the way care was delivered in the past created a legacy that many nearby residents and families still weigh today. With the property recently showing signs of dismantling - tiles and drywall being removed, and an Alliant Energy crew cutting the facility's power and removing underground feeds - the impression among locals is that Crestview Acres is headed toward demolition rather than rehabilitation. The closing and the current state of the site have left some with a sorrowful sense of what once existed, and others with concerns about what was lost when it finally shut down.

The spectrum of experiences reported by families and observers is strikingly wide, spanning from deeply troubling to cautiously positive. One account centers on a family's firsthand distress when their grandfather was a resident for only a few days. They described a facility that failed to provide basic transparency and coordination: no papers signed upon admission, no clear information about the patient's room, and staff who seemed overwhelmed or unavailable at critical moments. They recounted shocking scenes - patients left in deteriorating recliners in the dining room, some wandering without adequate supervision, and a lack of prompt cleaning after accidents. In their words, the atmosphere was "terrible," the staffing "VERY poorly staffed," and the overall impression that the place misrepresented itself from the outset, relying on outside agencies to fill staffing gaps.

Several reviews paint a picture of an outdated, aging building that compounded caregiving challenges. Complaints about the physical environment included concerns about cleanliness and appropriateness of care, with repeated references to a facility that felt not only old but mismanaged. The sense that the left hand did not know what the right hand was doing - communication gaps among staff and a sense that directives and routines were not consistently aligned - emerged as a common thread. The use of a pest-control contractor who did not seem to provide a lasting solution, and a general sense of disorganization, contributed to a broader impression that Crestview Acres was not operating at the level expected of a modern elder-care facility.

Staffing issues repeatedly surfaced as a core problem in these accounts. Multiple reviewers described chronic short-staffing, with crucial tasks left undone or delayed, sometimes for extended periods. The suggestion that two workers should be present to adequately assist clients in some situations underscored a perceived gap between the needs of residents and the manpower available. The dementia unit was highlighted as a particularly fragile area, where alarms and safety protocols sometimes failed to prevent residents from being left unsupervised. In some cases, families expressed that falls or incidents were followed by long waits for assistance, and that visitors occasionally served as the primary aid when staff were not immediately available. The overarching concern was that essential care tasks - assistance with hygiene, timely responses to needs, and consistent supervision - were not reliably delivered.

The quality of daily life for residents was another area of considerable debate. Descriptions of meals and overall care varied, with some accounts calling the food "bad" and the environment "dated" and not conducive to the needs of dementia patients. There was also worry about the cleanliness and the speed with which staff addressed medical or daily-care requirements. Yet not every voice echoed those grave concerns. A different perspective emphasized that Crestview Acres was not a fancy facility, but that it offered affordability and that the staff, while stretched thin, demonstrated care and compassion in their work. In this view, the facility's strengths lay in the dedication of a workforce that, despite constraints, tried to maintain a humane and patient-centered approach. The contrast between these perspectives illustrates the complexity of evaluating a place that many families depended on during vulnerable times.

Amid the chorus of criticism, there are also positive notes about Crestview Acres, particularly from families who found improvements after transitioning from other arrangements. One family described moving their mother to Crestview Acres - primarily for proximity - and found the experience to be "nothing but positive." They highlighted how the move was made easier by staff and how the transition was handled smoothly. They spoke appreciatively of staff who were helpful, polite, and caring to both their mother and other residents, and they noted that the facility encouraged them to share concerns so improvements could be made. This account does not erase the negative experiences shared by others, but it does provide a counterpoint that suggests Crestview Acres could meet the needs of some families well, especially when staff were able to connect with loved ones and support their day-to-day needs.

Another reviewer summarized the facility as part of a broader spectrum: not as bad as some places, not as good as others. This sentiment captures a sense of variance that seems to accompany many long-term-care facilities - where outcomes can differ dramatically from unit to unit, shift to shift, and leader to leader. The mention of being short-staffed again appears here, underscoring a recurring theme that the facility's performance likely depended heavily on staffing levels at any given time. In such contexts, even committed caregivers can struggle to provide consistently high-quality care when the system around them is strained.

As Crestview Acres stands on the cusp of demolition, these reviews linger in the background as a human record of what residents and their families experienced there. The conflicting memories - some of neglect and mismanagement, others of care, closeness, and helpful staff - reflect the complicated reality of elder care, where resources, leadership, and day-to-day execution intersect in ways that profoundly impact people's lives. The building's decline and the abrupt end of operations have left a trail of stories that continue to shape how local residents understand the legacy of Crestview Acres and what they hope for in the future of the site and the care of its former residents. In the wake of the closure and the decommissioning of power, the conversation shifts toward what comes next for the property and how communities remember the people who lived there during its years of operation.

Restaurants

• The Freeze (0.2 miles)
• The Hip-Stir (1 miles)
• Goldfinch Tap + E (1 miles)
• McDonald's (1.2 miles)
• Subway (1.3 miles)
• Taco Bell (1.4 miles)
• Five Guys Burgers & Fries (1.7 miles)

Pharmacies

• Walgreens (0.9 miles)
• Sorg Sample Pharmacies (1 miles)
• CVS Pharmacy (1.5 miles)
• Walgreens (2.3 miles)
• Integrative Health and Hormone Clinic (2.3 miles)
• Walgreens (2.5 miles)
• Rockwell Collins Pharmacy (2.8 miles)

Parks

• Thomas Park (1.1 miles)
• Squaw Creek (1.5 miles)
• Lowe Park (3.3 miles)
• Sac and Fox Trail City Park (3.5 miles)
• Van Vechten Park (3.9 miles)

Cafes

• Starbucks (1.1 miles)
• Starbucks (3.8 miles)

Physicians

• All About Eyes (1.4 miles)
• Jessica J. Quinn, PA-C (1.5 miles)
• Medlabs (1.6 miles)
• Clear Vision Eyecare (1.7 miles)
• Northland Skin Clinic (2.1 miles)
• Eastern Iowa Oral Surgery (2.6 miles)
• Trimble Deborah Lynn, DDS (2.8 miles)

Hospitals

• Mercy Care Center at Marion (1.6 miles)
• Sedlacek Treatment Center (3.1 miles)
• Mercy Medical Center (3.4 miles)
• UnityPoint | St Lukes Cedar Rapids (4.1 miles)
• St Luke's Hospital 5C (4.2 miles)

Theaters

• Collins Road Theatres (1.6 miles)
• Marcus Theatres (3.2 miles)

Places of Worship

• Temple Judah (2.8 miles)