Pine Crest Nursing Home sells for $9.5 million

The sale of Pine Crest Nursing Home has been finalized, an Aug. 7, 2025, press release from Marcus & Millichap, Inc. (MMI) confirmed. MMI is the commercial real estate brokerage firm selected by Lincoln County to find a buyer for the skilled nursing facility. “As the only skilled nursing facility in Merrill, the property drew strong interest during a highly competitive marketing process,” said Senior Managing Director Ray Giannini, investment specialist for MMI. “With current occupancy at 70% and strong Medicaid and Medicare per diem rates, the buyer sees significant opportunity to increase both occupancy and revenue moving forward.”
Lincoln County sold the nursing home, along with the Health and Human Services building at the corner of E. Sixth St. and Sales St. in Merrill, to the legal entity Jack Pines Healthcare LLC, which is a division of the Ensign Group, Inc., for $9.5 million, despite the objections of some area residents who had organized and called themselves the People for Pine Crest. At recent Lincoln County Board meetings, County Board Supervisors told the People for Pine Crest group, and the community, that the County could no longer afford to operate the nursing home and that it could very well close if the sale fell through.
The Ensign Group, Inc., operates healthcare facilities in 17 states, including Wisconsin, and also purchased the Benedictine facility in Wausau last fall. Part of their strategy, they explained in a recent presentation to Lincoln County Board Supervisors and the public, is to own facilities located in proximity to one another so they can work together and operate in clusters.
On Monday, Aug. 4, Lincoln County Administrative Coordinator Renee Krueger confirmed “that the sale did proceed on time and is final.”
She explained that “ALL staff [working at Pine Crest Nursing Home] would have received termination notices from either Lincoln County or North Central Health Care as part of the transition process.”

“I would have to defer to Ensign as to who they hired beginning Aug. 1,” Krueger said.
An Aug. 4 email to the Ensign Group requesting more information about the number of employees who had been rehired by their company has gone unanswered.
However, on Aug. 5, Alex Eichten, Manager of Communications at North Central Health Care confirmed that “a total of 141 employees (both full-time and part-time) were formally terminated from North Central Health Care as of July 31, 2025, in alignment with the ownership transition of Pine Crest Nursing Home to Ensign. All impacted employees received written notice on June 30, 2025, which included details regarding the transition timeline and next steps.”
“Of those 141 individuals, all but 15 were extended employment offers by Ensign,” Eichten said. “We are not privy to the criteria used by Ensign in making their hiring decisions. However, North Central Health Care was able to successfully transfer two of those 15 individuals into similar roles at other NCHC facilities where we had vacancies.”
The net result is that 13 former Pine Crest employees [it is unknown whether they were full or part-time] were left unemployed as a result of the transition.
In an Aug. 7, press release, Ryan Hanson, former Pine Crest Nursing Home Administrator, wrote, “I have the privilege of continuing to be the Administrator of Pine Crest Health and Memory Care (“Pine Crest”) in Merrill ... The legal entity that owns the operation is Jack Pines Healthcare LLC, and Pine Crest will operate independently under the direct and local leadership of me and the Department Directors employed by Pine Crest. We are grateful for the opportunity to be part of this community and look forward to serving the long-term and skilled nursing needs of residents in all our surrounding areas. We are currently assessing the resources available to help us achieve our goal of providing quality healthcare and rehabilitation to those requiring such services.”
Pine Crest Health and Memory Care, formerly known as Pine Crest Nursing Home, is a five-star rated 120-bed skilled nursing facility located at 2100 E. 6th St. in Merrill, that has served the Merrill-area community for nearly 70 years. The building increased its footprint with the addition of a rehabilitation center and recently added memory care unit and special care units and currently includes 117 units, of which 105 are private rooms and 15 are semi-private rooms.
“We also plan to engage with those in the area as we get settled in to determine what additional programs or services we can offer to meet any existing but unmet needs,” Hanson said in his new role with Jack Pines/Ensign Group. “As new programs are identified and introduced, we will make Merrill and the surrounding communities aware of their existence.”