With its flower-filled gardens and plush, bed and breakfast accommodations, Nesselrod on the New has for years been a site of rest and relaxation.

In coming months, however, the roughly 8-acre parcel along the New River will begin offering residential respite to a slightly different crowd. Rather than playing host to wedding parties or vacationers, the Pulaski County plot will soon be transformed into a 104-unit retirement community.

Scott Miller, vice president for development with Smith/Packett of Roanoke, said the senior housing and health-care development company is under contract to purchase the Nesselrod property and expects to close on it later this year.

In an e-mail, Inn Manager and Wedding Coordinator Tanya White confirmed Nesselrod on the New is closing but is "just not sure when yet."

Already, the Pulaski County Board of Supervisors has rezoned the land and approved a special-use permit to allow Smith/Packett to build a retirement community there.

Miller said the project is in the design phase, and the company expects to obtain a building permit "sometime later this year."

"There's certainly an underserved need for the seniors that reside in the Pulaski County and Radford community, and we're looking to serve those residents with a state-of-the-art, purpose-built, new facility," Miller said.

Once built, the retirement community is expected to hold 50 independent living apartments, 34 assisted living units and 20 "memory care" units in one, more-than-100,000-square-foot building. It will staff about 50 people.

Miller said the costs to develop the community have yet to be finalized.

Also uncertain is the fate of the 69-year-old Nesselrod on the New building.

"It will, at minimum, have to be relocated," Miller said. But "we have not made any final decisions about what will ultimately happen to it."

Nesselrod on the New was converted into a bed and breakfast in 1999 and Peggy White, executive director of the Pulaski County Chamber of Commerce, said the community will definitely feel its loss.

"I hate to see Nesselrod go," White said. "It was such a really nice asset to the area."

She is hopeful, however, that Smith/Packett's new retirement community will also prove to be a boon for the county.