An Idaho skilled nursing company is under contract to purchase a 2.4-acre property in Aina Haina for a rehabilitation facility.

Advanced Health Care Corp. is proposing to build a 48,000-square-foot, two-story facility at 5415 Kalanianaole Highway, a project that would mark its entrance into the Hawaii market after scouting sites for the past three years, said Dave Nattress, chief executive officer.

The 50-room facility would cater mostly to seniors on Medicare and Medicaid who need short-term orthopedic rehabilitation services after surgeries, strokes, hip replacements or illness such as pneumonia. Patients would stay 20 to 30 days on average, Nattress said.

The property’s current owner, the Outrigger Canoe Club, announced in its November member newsletter that it was selling the property at a slightly higher price than the $13.2 million it paid in 2008. The sale is scheduled to close in September.

“We’re under contract, but contingencies that have to be worked through are substantial,” Nattress said.

Those contingencies would take at least a year to get through and include community meetings and completing state regulatory and permitting processes. After a one-year build-out, the company expects the facility would open in early 2015.

Nattress estimates the project, including the acquisition and building costs, will total approximately $24 million. The project would also generate about 85 jobs for nurses; certified nurse assistants; physical, occupational and speech therapists; and housekeeping and dietary staff.

The center would offer patients private rooms with a kitchenette and space for families to stay overnight.

“It’s a very unique model that allows families the opportunity to have privacy with their loved ones while they’re recovering,” he added. “We felt like there was a need certainly to do one (in the community).”

Wayson Chow, president of the Aina Haina Community Association, said the group has several objections to a commercial project being built in a residential neighborhood.

Among the concerns is that the project would change the dynamics of the beachfront community with a large two-story facility that would include as many as 90 parking stalls, create traffic and shoreline problems and put residents and employees in jeopardy because it is in a tsunami flood zone.

“To build a health care facility on an oceanfront property that’s previously been hit by the 1946 tsunami endangers the safety of patients and employees, and it would cause substantial disruption of the limited Aina Haina tsunami refuge facility,” Chow said. “It is unwise and highly unreasonable.”

Peter Kay, chairman of the Kuliouou/Kalani Iki Neighborhood Board, said the company may come against potential conflict in the permitting process but that it is “too early to tell” what the community sentiment is.

“It is tentative, it is of interest and they want to know more,” Kay said. “Most typical neighborhoods want to minimize commercial activity.”

An Advanced Health Care representative is scheduled to attend a board meeting tonight at 7 p.m. in the Aina Haina Public Library to answer any questions or concerns raised by community members.

The company, established in 2000, presented its plan to the neighborhood board in October and is slated to come before the board again with final plans in February.

It operates 11 facilities in six Western states and had initially pursued the purchase of a larger Aiea property in 2009, but started looking elsewhere when talks stalled. The company’s website at www.ahcfacilities.com offers virtual tours of its mainland operations.