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Construction: Planned
Civitas, StoneCreek Collaborating on Colorado Project
Civitas Senior Living and StoneCreek Real Estate Partners have plans to open a senior living community in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The opening will mark the fifth collaboration between the two companies.
The new community, called StoneCreek of Flying Horse, will include 114 residences for older adults and have amenities such as an enclosed courtyard, sun rooms, a salon and spa, multiple dining options, library, art room, activity room and fitness center.
Workers are set to begin construction for the community in March, with a targeted opening date in September, 2020.
Project’ partners include D2 Architecture, Brinkmann Constructors and Senior By Design.
Civitas Senior Living
Civitas Senior Living
Blake Management Group, LifeCare Properties Plan Texas Community
LifeCare Properties and Blake Management Group are collaborating on The Blake at New Braunfels in New Braunfels, Texas. The opening will represent the first Blake location in the state.
LifeCare is developing the 93,000-square-foot assisted living and memory care community. It will offer residents options that include two-bedroom suites, one-bedroom suites and studio apartments.
Construction: In progress
Watercrest, Waypoint Celebrate Groundbreaking in South Carolina
Watercrest Senior Living Group and its equity partner, Waypoint Residential, have marked the start of construction for a new senior living community in Fort Mill, South Carolina.
The 107-unit assisted living and memory care community will come with a branded spa, a wine bistro with private-label wines and multiple dining venues with outdoor, bistro-style and private dining options. Other features include a promenade, pool, fireplace, water wall, children’s play space an an faux-outdoor streetscape for memory care residents with a salon and spa, bakery and post office.
Project development partners include LifeBUILT Architecture, Merchants Bank, Interior Design Associates, Shiel Sexton construction and government officials in Fort Mill. If all goes according to plan, residents will begin moving in early next year.
Work Starts for California Community
Sundt Construction has started work on Avesta Residences at Dublin, an 80-unit community slated to open in Dublin, California.
The community will have an outdoor plaza at its entrance in addition to patios on the second and third floors. The project’s is LPAS.
The community is expected to open by the end of 2019.
Connecticut Community to Celebrate Expansion
Covenant Village of Cromwell, a faith-based, non-profit senior living community that’s owned and operated by Covenant Retirement Communities, is set to host a groundbreaking ceremony for its new expansion project on Feb. 21.
The planned $48-million expansion will include 54 one-and two-bedroom apartment homes and a new town center with three dining venues, lobbies, a game room, an art studio, a wellness center and an event center.
Project partners include the C.E. Floyd Company, THW Design, Milone & Macbroom, JFW, Inc. and Dowley and Associates. Construction is slated to begin in March and wrap up in the fall of 2020.
Construction: Complete
Senior Living Communities Announces Completed Renovations
Senior Living Communities has completed several renovation projects in recent months, the company announced.
Evergreen Woods in North Branford, Connecticut renovated its interior hallways. Marsh’s Edge, located in Saint Simons Island, Georgia, renovated its clubhouse and hallways. And Homestead Hills in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, completed a renovation of its clubhouse.
Two regional senior living operators that have shaken up their executive ranks in recent months made moves to bolster their companies’ cultures and training programs this week.
Civitas Senior Living promoted Misti Powell to the role of chief people officer. Powell, a co-founder of Ft. Worth, Texas-based Civitas, was most recently the company’s senior vice president of operations. Civitas operates 38 communities in five states, with another 17 communities under development.
This is a newly created role as part of Civitas’ ongoing focus on a positive, people-first company culture. She will continue to oversee employee training, activities, overall resident experience, memory care training and application, and implementation of the company’s signature Passion Program.
“My goal is to create and continue to innovate a positive environment of growth and passion for each and every employee of our company,” Powell said in a statement. “A happy, dedicated workforce that understands the value they bring not only benefits the stability of our company but also, and more importantly, the residents we serve.”
Powell’s new role is the latest in a series of executive moves at Civitas. The company named Misty Miller chief wellness officer last September, and Nathan Bowyer was named chief information officer last December. Both positions were newly created roles.
Ecumen, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit senior living providers, hired Melanie “Mel” Sullivan as its chief people officer. Based in Mankato, Minnesota, Ecumen operates 40 communities in eight states.
A 30-year health care industry veteran, Sullivan was most recently at Minneapolis-based Constellation, a collective of medical insurers and health service organizations dedicated to improving the delivery of health care and providing effective business solutions to group practices, hospitals and long-term care communities. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota and the University of St. Thomas, in the areas of health management and master of business administration–health care. Sullivan will report directly to Ecumen CEO and President Shelley Kendrick, who assumed the role last January.
Seven years after its founding, Civitas Senior Living has gained significant scale and is in a major development push. The Fort Worth, Texas-based company has a portfolio of 35 operational communities and plans to add another 20 within two years.
For some of these developments, Civitas is working with capital partners that are entering senior living for the first time. And Civitas is refining a data-driven operating model and leveraging the skills of a young leadership team.
“What I’m most proud of is, we have a younger company [and] half our C-suite is female — not by design, all through hiring the best person for the position,” CEO and co-founder Wayne Powell told Senior Housing News at the recent Argentum conference in San Antonio.
Many of the new developments are located in Civitas’ home state of Texas, but the company is also moving further afield, with openings planned in Arizona, Colorado, Florida and Kentucky.
A shift in strategy
The Civitas story really begins about 13 years ago, Powell said. That’s when he and his wife, Misti, had the opportunity to invest in a senior living community in the Fort Worth area. Through that investment, they met many of the people who would become co-founding partners in Civitas, including President Cooper Vittitow, Chief Marketing Officer Amy Vittitow, Co-Managing Partner Jay Dempsey and others.
Civitas began by acquiring turnaround properties, but shifted its strategy to ground-up development for several reasons. For one, it is harder to do turnarounds when the core leadership team now has responsibility for a larger portfolio and can no longer be on-site leading the day-to-day efforts at the troubled community, Powell said.
Market conditions have also changed. Competition has ramped up, as have consumer expectations, increasing the amount of capital needed for a turnaround.
“Some groups do not have the money to put into an aging asset, and if we can’t get the capital infusion or buy it and have the money to go into it upfront, we’re not interested,” Powell said. “The asset has to look like it’s at the top of the market.”
Civitas has also scant appetite these days for third-party management. The company owns about 50% of its portfolio, with the balance in joint ventures or managed. Going forward, Civitas would only consider managing for strategic partners, such as a JV partner that needs help with another project, Powell said.
This has left development as the path toward growth, and the current robust pipeline has been underway for five or six years. In the last two to three years, supply has flooded certain markets around the country and construction costs have surged, but Powell believes that the company has selected sites wisely and is managing expenses.
Several Texas markets that Civitas is developing in — including San Antonio and Dallas — have recorded significant occupancy declines in recent years, tied largely to supply-demand imbalances. However, in Texas and other states, Civitas has carefully evaluated demographics, labor conditions and other factors, and has chosen sites with barriers to entry that have largely insulated it from new competition, although there have been some impacts, Powell said.
“What were six to nine-month fills have lengthened out to 14-, 16-, 18-month fills, which is really what you pro forma anyhow,” he said.
He believes that signs point to slowing construction and a move toward market stabilization. And construction costs are also becoming more stable, he said, but they have indeed risen, making value engineering more important.
“We have to make sure that if there’s any efficiencies that will not negatively affect the customer experience, we’ve got to look at those efficiencies,” he said. “It’s just the new reality. We have to adjust to it.”
Civitas did not intend to have quite so many projects opening their doors in such a condensed period. Some projects moved more quickly than anticipated while others encountered delays. Still, Powell is confident that the company can execute as these new properties come online.
“In the last two to three years, there have been months when we’ve opened two, three buildings in four, five weeks,” Powell said. “What we learned and most providers probably already know is, make sure your integration team is strong, and make sure your ops team is not involved in integration, so we’re not pulling from existing communities — it’s a diversion of attention.”
Today, systems and timelines are in place so that startups — though always challenging — can happen “like clockwork,” he added.
Civitas has teamed with a variety of capital partners to drive its development, preferring to work with local firms in the areas where the communities are located. Some of these capital partners are new to senior living.
For example, hotel-focused investor and developer LKP Ventures is the joint venture partner on Harvest Senior Living, an 83-unit assisted living and memory care community going up in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. NexCore Group develops health care facilities such as hospitals and medical office buildings, and is now entering senior living by working with Civitas on a 100-unit assisted living and memory care project in Cape Coral, Florida.
These capital partners appreciate the operational complexity and intensity of senior living and at the same time bring valuable insights from their own areas of expertise, Powell said.
While there has not been an “organized process” to bring components of hotels or health care into the senior living projects, this has been “at the forefront of our conversations,” he added.
The Civitas model
A typical Civitas development is about 80 to 100 units of blended assisted living and memory care; if there is an independent living component, Civitas prefers to have at least 120 units. Generally the different levels of care have their own dedicated amenity spaces but share a common kitchen.
Perhaps it’s natural, given that many of its leaders are members of the millennial generation, that Civitas’ operating model is based largely on technology and data.
“Our focus has been taking the systems we have and really focus on how to make the data work for us,” Powell said.
For example, the industry historically has relied on spend-down sheets to track expenses. Working with RealPage, Civitas managers now are essentially able to manage the profit-and-loss statement in real time.
At morning meetings in communities, the teams go through a specific checklist to review payables, and ensure that invoices are posted in less than 24 hours. As a result, at the end of the month, the communities already know what they’ve spent, and financial reports can be closed in a single workweek. From the community level on up through the organization, this enables greater focus and nimbleness.
“It’s made a huge difference,” Powell said.
On the clinical side, Eldermark is helping improve medication management processes to drive more proactive care.
“We want advance notifications if med pass is running late or a med was missed. We don’t want to find it at the end of the shift or next day,” Powell said. “We’re working closely with pharmacy providers to make sure that we have medications that … are easiest to inventory, to pass.”
And Civitas invested more than $1 million in training last year, including extended orientations for executive directors, rather than on-the-ground training. Misti Powell recently took the chief people officer title to further drive workforce engagement and initiatives.
Future investments could include virtual reality to aid in workforce training, which is a promising but not yet fully realized technology offering, Wayne Powell said.
As for future new development, once its current expansionary period is completed, Civitas will “settle out” for a while, Powell said. Opportunities continue to flow in, but the company is passing on the vast majority; discipline is more important than ever given current tough operating conditions in many geographies.
“We’ll start telling ourselves a story about a market and we say, no … Does it work, or doesn’t it work? Let’s move on,” Powell said.
With unemployment rates dipping below 3% in states across the country, senior living workforce challenges are only becoming more acute. And like other industries, senior living providers see labor as an issue requiring dedicated C-suite leaders and are appointing chief people officers.
Recently appointed chief people officers, such as Misti Powell at Civitas Senior Living and Melanie “Mel” Sullivan at Ecumen, are looking for ways to expand the pool of qualified talent available to operators, exploring avenues to make senior living a desirable career path, and expand growth opportunities to current employees.
They are drawing from their previous experiences in forming their strategies in their current roles. Sullivan’s backgrounds in human resources and clinical health care, as well as her experience building businesses and operational partnerships, solidified her belief that the most important asset a provider has. And her experience blends well with new Ecumen CEO Shelley Kendrick’s vision for the chief people officer role.
“There is a deep commitment to the work being done,” Sullivan said.
Separating fact from fiction
Fort Worth, Texas-based Civitas has a portfolio of 35 operational communities and plans to add another 20 within two years. Powell was named chief people officer last month and was Civitas’ senior vice president of operations, prior to that.
One of the biggest challenges Powell consistently sees: overcoming misconceptions about senior living.
“To be honest, we don’t sound appealing to a lot of people,” Powell told Senior Housing News.
Civitas was invited to speak with classes at Texas Tech University’s hospitality studies program, sharing info with incoming freshmen and outgoing seniors about what senior living is about and the career opportunities available to them.
Many college graduates in hospitality believe a clinical degree is necessary to entertain a career in senior living, she found.
“We had a handful of students assume senior living was only nursing homes,” Powell said. “They were shocked to learn we had chefs in our communities.”
Ecumen’s Sullivan shares these concerns about how young talent misunderstands senior living. Shoreview, Minnesota-based Ecumen is one of the nation’s largest nonprofit senior housing operators and service providers, with a portfolio of 40 communities in eight states.
Sullivan joined Ecumen last March. Additionally, she is an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota and the University of St. Thomas, in the areas of health management and master of business administration–health care.
In her teaching roles, Sullivan has experienced first-hand the struggles to get young professionals to consider senior living as a career path. The industry has not been the most well-regarded career path but, in her opinion, offers some of the most exciting service opportunities.
“People aren’t sure what the industry involves,” she said. “But the possibilities are limitless.”
Balancing hospitality with health care
Civitas is not only reaching out to hospitality students but is active in developing a solid employee pipeline on the health care side.
The company build a clinical bridge program with the nursing school at Southwestern Adventist University in Keene, Texas, so that students get a more thorough understanding about senior living, Powell told SHN.
“Sometimes the only clinical [training] they get is in a nursing home,” she said.
Two years ago, Civitas and Southwestern Adventist University developed a 12-credit senior living certificate and certification program, which provides a solid initial immersion for graduates interested in pursuing careers in the industry.
Civitas’ recruiting efforts on college campuses gives the company an advantage over its competitors, Powell said. In fact, she has been surprised at how few of Civitas’ competitors are actively recruiting on campuses.
“Branching out to colleges is the best avenue for being in front of those new minds of tomorrow and get into this industry that is always evolving,” she said.
Senior living’s health care and hospitality components share a common trait — a focus on the consumer and what the provider can do for them, Ecumen’s Sullivan told SHN.
The two components must have a balanced existence, or else that personal experience is lost. This could be an increasingly tricky balance to strike as senior living providers are seeking to add more robust health care capabilities than in the past.
“If you tip it too far to the hospitality component, you can lose the humanity component,” Sullivan said.
Ecumen offers internships to college and high school students, showing them the many career paths available to them in senior living. Sullivan encourages interns and employees to develop diverse skill sets in order to prepare them for the shifting demands in the market.
“You don’t want to get hooked into a specific skillset now, when the industry will be different in a few years,” she said.
Senior living has recognized the need for more focused training, and industry groups and providers are stepping up to the plate. A fundraising effort at Washington State University is underway which would establish a senior living institute named after industry pioneer Granger Cobb. Last month, LeisureCare launched a paid internship program. Andrew Carle, who helped build the senior housing program at George Mason University, is laying the groundwork for a similar program at Georgetown University.
Empowering the workforce
Maintaining a workforce is just as hard as developing one, if not more so. Chief people officers have recognized that allowing employees to have a say in how training programs are developed and adjusted, and in identifying their own career objectives, establishes loyalty and gives workers an added sense of purpose.
Civitas has several training and mentorship programs available to its employees, from apprenticeships to incentive-based programs for shift leaders and a pipeline to develop future executive directors for its communities, Powell said.
Civitas invested $1 million last year in training, and Powell is betting that developing people and providing them with a place to grow professionally will allow them to compete with other industries that can offer higher wages.
Powell found that, while speaking with Civitas employees, many prefer to have defined career trajectories over a small hourly wage hike, as they recognize the training they receive will eventually benefit them long term.
The investment in training is paying immediate dividends for Civitas. The company reduced its turnover rate 36% in Q1 2019 over the previous year, Powell said.
Sometimes, it is about neither wage nor title, Sullivan said. It is about finding work with a sense of purpose and meaning, knowing they’re being appreciated.
“It’s mostly about helping develop talent to find their unique gifts and serve customers as best as possible,” she said.
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Construction: In progress
CA Senior Living Starts Work on Community Near Philadelphia
CA Senior Living — the senior housing investment and development arm of CA Ventures — recently broke ground on Anthology of King of Prussia, a 192-unit senior living community in Wayne, Pennsylvania.
The 11-story building is slated to open in The Village at Valley Forge, a 122-acre mixed-use development. Independent and assisted living residences will range from 410 square foot studios to 1,200 square-foot two-bedroom apartments and come with design features such as quartz countertops, tile backsplashes, stainless steel appliances; nine-foot ceilings and washers and dryers.
Amenities will include multiple dining venues, a theater, library, family suite with private outdoor deck, game room, a fitness center, indoor pool, physical therapy room and a spa with salon services. On the memory care side, residents can use a family lounge, salon, library, activity rooms and an all-seasons room adjacent to the interior courtyard.
CA Senior Living’s new senior living operations division, Anthology Senior Living, is on board to manage the community. Wohlsen Construction Co. is serving as the project’s general contractor, while Perkins Eastman designed it.
If all goes according to plan, the community will open in late 2020.
Cadence Starts Work in Southern California
Cadence Living recently broke ground on Cadence at Rancho Cucamonga, a 97-unit community in Rancho Cucamonga, California.
The community, which is being developed in partnership with Coyne Development, will have independent living, assisted living and memory care units and amenities including a dog park, community garden, fitness center, salon, restaurant and bistro.
Cadence Living is is expanding its footprint throughout the U.S. south and west with projects underway or communities already open in communities in California, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia and Tennessee.
Work Underway for Civitas Project in Texas
Civitas Senior Living and LKP Ventures have broken ground on Harvest of Roanoke, a project in Roanoke, Texas.
The community will have 83 units within a building inspired by the local charm in Roanoke. Harvest of Roanoke is scheduled to welcome residents some time in the fall of 2020.
Confluent, HRA Break Ground in Florida
Confluent Senior Living and Harbor Retirement Associates (HRA) have started work for HarborChase of Stuart, an assisted living and memory care community in Stuart, Florida.
The 134-unit project will come with one- and two-bedroom units and amenities such as a salon and spa, fitness and wellness center, bar and lounge, a bistro, private dining room with an exhibition kitchen a secure courtyard with a dining area, putting green, pond and gardens.
Baker Barrios Architects is serving as the project’s architect, while The Douglas Company is the general contractor. HRA will manage the community once it opens in the summer of 2020.
Compass to Manage Community Coming Together in Oregon
Compass Senior Living is slated to manage The Landing, a senior living community under construction in Roseburg, Oregon.
The community will have 94 units and amenities such as a theater, courtyards, a bistro with a computer area a salon and barber shop and a library.
The Landing is jointly owned by Compass Senior Living, Paradigm Properties and a group of investors. Dustrud Architects designed the campus, while the contractor is Essex Construction.
Benchmark Community in Pennsylvania Starts Renovation Project
Wellington at Hershey’s Mill, a Benchmark Senior Living community in West Chester, Pennsylvania, is undergoing a major renovation project.
The first phase is already underway and includes the performing arts center and hallways. Slated for future renovations are the independent living residences, dining room, auditorium, concierge, reception desk and the common areas.
Tutera Remodeling Project Underway in Kansas
Tutera Senior Living & Health Care is overhauling The Atriums, a retirement community in Overland Park, Kansas.
Tutera is set to complete the first phase of a $1.5 million renovation this month. The scope of the work has included turning a common living area into an upscale, modernized dining and gathering place. Amenities and services now include a main dining area, community lounges, a pub, cards and billiards room, grand piano and a reading corner and more. Work first began last November.
Work for the project’s second phase is expected to wrap up in the next 12 to 18 months.
Construction: Complete
Kansas Community From Hunt and Principal Welcomes First Residents
Hunt Midwest and partner Principal Senior Living Group recently opened Benton House of Olathe, an assisted living and memory care community in Olathe, Kansas.
Included in the community are indoor and outdoor amenity spaces and 55 studio and one-bedroom apartment suites situated around two landscaped courtyards. The community also has a secured area for memory care residents.
This is Hunt Midwest and Principal Senior Living Group’s ninth Benton House community in the Kansas City metro area since the two companies entered the market in 2011.
Life Plan Community Opens in Orange County, California
Reata Glen, a new life plan community in Rancho Mission Viejo, California, is now open and welcoming residents.
Reata Glen has 480 independent living apartment homes in 20 different floor plans. Amenities include a movie theater, performing arts theater, fitness center and spa, an indoor pool, multiple dining venues, billiards and card rooms, gardening areas, and walking and cycling trails. The community will also have an adjacent health center with assisted living, memory care, and long-term care services.
W.E. O’Neil Construction and KTGY Group Architects + Planning were partners on the project.
Asbury Opens Assisted Living, Memory Care Residence in Tennessee
Asbury Place, an Asbury Communities property in Maryville, Tennessee, is opening a new assisted living and memory care residence on June 1.
The residence, dubbed The Beech, was built to emulate a private home rather than a more traditional senior living property.
United Methodist Opens Wellness Center in Michigan
United Methodist Retirement Communities (UMRC) and the UMRC Foundation have opened a new wellness center at the Chelsea Retirement Community in Chelsea, Michigan.
The new space has an indoor heated swimming pool with a wheelchair ramp, a lazy river, hot tub track and fitness equipment. The center’s construction was part of the UMRC Foundation’s Growing to Serve campaign, which raised over $27.7 million.
Affordable Senior Housing Opens in Florida
Housing Trust Group and Miami Jewish Health Systems recently held a grand opening for Douglas Gardens, a $36 million, 110-unit affordable senior housing community in Pembroke Pines, Florida.
The community is meant for older adults with incomes at or below 60% of area median income, with rents ranging from $405 to $953 a month. The community has a multipurpose room, a computer lab and a private courtyard with landscaped pathways and gardens.
Affordable Senior Housing Debuted in New York City
A 320-unit development for low-income seniors has opened in The Bronx, the borough in New York City.
The community has a health center and pharmacy, accessible gardens and laundry rooms and a mix of studios and one-bedroom floor plans.
Nonprofit developer West Side Federation for Senior and Supportive Housing is behind the project.
Other noteworthy projects:
Planned
— A new four-story senior housing complex is coming together in Los Angeles.
— Brightview Senior Living is seeking to build a 177-unit senior living community in Eatontown, New Jersey.
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Construction: Planned
Ryan Cos., Great Lakes Plan Wisconsin Project
Ryan Companies and Great Lakes Management are collaborating on a new independent living, assisted living and memory care community in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.
The two companies are slated to break ground in the spring of next year on Talamore at Sun Prairie, a 141-unit community with amenities such as multiple dining venues, a library, wellness center with fitness area, spa and salon, club room, library, activity room and a gathering room.
This is Ryan and Great Lakes’ second senior living project together in the past year. Ryan Companies expects to develop 12 new senior living communities across the U.S., annually.
Civitas Plans Arizona Project With Developer Desert Land
Civitas Senior Living and developer Desert Land Group have announced plans for a new senior living community in Flagstaff, Arizona.
The community, dubbed The Bluffs of Flagstaff, will have 202 residences offering independent living, assisted living, and memory care services. Amenities include an indoor pool, putting green, interior courtyard, pub and lounge, a fitness gym, an outdoor cooking area and dog parks.
Workers will break ground on the community in October, with an opening date set for 2021. The architect for the project is Kaas Wilson, the general contractor is Greenberg Construction, and the designer is is Senior by Design.
Developer Plans Communities to Meet Middle Market
Senior Living Development has announced a forthcoming mid-market assisted living and memory care pipeline. The company currently has three sites under contract and is securing additional sites in urban areas throughout the “tri-state” of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut and New England.
The rental, private-pay communities will have rates that are approximately 30% less than the the typical luxury assisted living or memory care project, its backers said. The communities are designed with a semi-private room concept tailored to urban areas and, more specifically, Opportunity Zones, which carry tax advantages.
Amenities will include health and wellness offerings, a bistro, media room, library, arts and crafts, hairdressing, a nurse station and a sundry store.
Construction: In progress
Construction Underway for California Memory Care Community
Advocacy Development Partners has announced the beginning of construction for The Terraces at Via Verde, a 32-unit memory care community in San Dimas, California.
As planned, residents will choose from private suites, private rooms with shared restrooms and companion rooms, all equipped with walk-in showers, a nurse system, thermostat controls and nine-foot ceilings. Amenities and services will include restaurant-style dining venues, a wine room for family members, Montessori-based programming, a sensory garden, walking path, interior courtyard and a second-floor terrace.
Frontier Management will operate the community once it opens next year. Other project partners include Irwin Partners Architects, PacifiCore Construction, interior design firm Conley Design and Fremont Bank.
Construction: Complete
Clarendale Community Opens in Illinois
Clarendale of Addison, a senior living community in Addison, Illinois, has officially opened its doors to residents.
The community has for residents private one- and two-bedroom independent and assisted living apartments, with additional studio suites available on the memory care side. The community brings with it amenities such as a restaurant-style dining room and casual bistro, a pub, club room, library, salon and fitness center.
Clarendale of Addison is the latest Clarendale community from developer-builder Ryan Companies. PRB Architects designed the project, with civil engineering by Manhard Consulting and interior design by Direct Supply Aptura. Life Care Services is managing the property.
Confluent Announces Five New Openings This Year
Confluent Senior Living has opened five senior living communities this year:
MorningStar Assisted Living & Memory Care of Beaverton community opened in Portland, Oregon, last November.
MorningStar Assisted Living & Memory Care of Santa Fe opened in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in January.
HarborChase of Beavercreek opened in Dayton, Ohio, in February.
MorningStar of Rio Rancho opened in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, in May.
MorningStar Senior Living of Arvada opened in Denver earlier this year in June.
Confluent Senior Living served as a co-developer and owner of these projects, and worked on them in partnership with MorningStar Senior Living and Harbor Retirement Associates (HRA), which were co-developers and operators.
Confluent Senior Living’s portfolio includes 20 total communities in 10 states, with six more under construction.
Affordable Community in Chicago Welcomes First Residents
Evergreen Real Estate Group announced that the first residents have moved into Northtown Apartments, a 44-unit affordable senior housing community in Chicago.
The community has 44 one-bedroom apartments for low-income older adults. It was built in partnership with the city of Chicago, Chicago Housing Authority and Chicago Public Library. It was also designed by Perkins+Will and constructed by Powers and Sons.
There are no notable surprises at the top of Argentum’s 2019 list of the largest providers in senior living, although there are some new additions to the expanded list.
The industry association’s overall list now includes 140 providers and 624,795 units, compared to last year’s total of 125 providers and 586,662 units. For the first time, the list includes the top 25 nonprofit providers, as compiled in last year’s LeadingAge Ziegler 200 list.
Among the top 125, this year’s list marks reveals a 5.4% growth in number of units.
“The growth of this list reflects the growth in this industry,” Argentum President and CEO James Balda said.
No changes at the top
The top five providers remain unchanged from last year. Brookdale Senior Living (NYSE: BKD) retained its status as the largest senior living operator by a wide margin, even as the company has been reshaping its portfolio through a series of dispositions and restructuring under CEO Cindy Baier’s leadership. The Brentwood, Tennessee-based operator owns 844 properties and 75,537 total units, the latter number representing a more than 15% decrease from 2018.
Brookdale’s total units are more than 41% greater than the second-largest provider, Winter Park, Florida-based Holiday Retirement, with 259 properties and 31,313 total units. Brookdale is also overwhelmingly the top assisted living provider, with 41,485 total units, and the top memory care provider, with 11,423 units. Holiday is the largest independent living provider with 30,897 units.
Courtesy of Argentum
Courtesy of ArgentumThe top 10 providers on Argentum’s 2019 top providers list.
The top five is rounded out by Life Care Services, Sunrise Senior Living and Five Star Senior Living (Nasdaq: FVE), with Sunrise and Five Star switching places from a year ago. Newton, Massachusetts-based Five Star spent the first half of 2019 restructuring leases and selling underperforming assets, and posted its first quarterly profit in six years in the second quarter of 2019.
The status of the “Big 3” REITs remained unchanged, as well. Toledo, Ohio-based Welltower (NYSE: WELL) retained the top spot with $17.5 billion invested in senior housing. Welltower is followed by Chicago-based Ventas (NYSE: VTR) with $16.6 billion in senior housing investments and Irvine, California-based HCP (NYSE: HCP) with $6.9 billion.
Newcomers and big movers
Argentum’s list also introduces several new providers for which data was not available for past lists.
Those additions include Ebenezer, the largest senior living operator in Minnesota with 93 communities and 7,581 total units. That is good enough to land the Minneapolis-based operator at 17th on the list.
Other new additions include Meridian Senior Living (No. 22); The Springs Living (No. 63); Midwest Health (No. 65); 12 Oaks Senior Living (No. 88); Sonata Senior Living (No. 119) and Liv Communities (No. 130).
Another newcomer, Inspirit Senior Living, landed at 121st on the list. The McLean, Virginia-based provider, founded four years ago by Sunrise veteran David McHarg, stands to move up in the rankings next year as it will increase its total unit count by 50% through acquisitions, Argentum reported in an article accompanying the list.
Legacy Retirement Communities saw the largest percentage growth among repeats from last year’s list. The Lincoln, Nebraska-based provider grew 234% and rocketed from 114th on 2018’s list to a firm position in the top 100 this year at 73rd.
Another provider, Vitality Living, saw one of the largest jumps among last year’s top 125. The Brentwood, Tennessee-based provider landed on last year’s list at No. 125 and jumped to No. 96 in 2019.
Other notable leapfrogs on this year’s list included Eclipse Senior Living (from 35th last year to 18th in 2019); Civitas Senior Living jumped from 35th to 28th; and New Perspective Senior Living grew 58% and jumped from 84th to 58th.
Eclipse, formed to take over the large portfolio previously operated by Elmcroft Senior Living, is pursuing a multi-brand portfolio as it expands. Civitas is targeting 20 new community openings within the next two years, while New Perspective aims to serve 10,000 seniors by 2025.
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Construction: Planned
Erickson Living to Expand Colorado CCRC
Erickson Living plans to add two residence buildings to Wind Crest, a continuing care retirement community (CCRC) in Highlands Ranch, Colorado.
All told, the new buildings will add more than 200 independent living apartment homes with 20 different floor plans with contemporary lighting and flooring and modern kitchens. The expansion will also include new amenity spaces.
The first building, which is called Summit Square, is scheduled to open during the summer of 2020. The second building, Quincy Point, is slated to open in the fall.
Vi recently broke ground on a $4.8 million remodeling project at its Vi at The Glen community in the Chicago suburb of Glenview.
The renovations will update the community’s three common areas, and will include a new full-service bar with a signature beverage program. The renovations will also add a new 29-seat theater for weekly movies or educational lectures. Workers are also updating the community’s restaurants.
Caddis Celebrates Groundbreaking on 19-Story Tower
Real estate development, management and investment firm Caddis Partners recently broke ground on Heartis Buckhead, a senior living community in Buckhead, Georgia, with a 19-story senior living tower.
The roughly 279,000-square-foot building will have 213 units. Integral Senior Living (ISL) is on board to manage it.
If all goes according to plan, Heartis Buckhead wil open in 2022.
Passco, Avenida Break Ground on Two Active Adult Projects
Passco Companies and Avenida Partners recently broke ground on new active adult developments in Palm Desert, California and Germantown, Tennessee.
Both communities will have 161 apartment homes and amenities including a fitness center, theater, yoga studio, creative arts center and multiple outdoor spaces.
Construction for both projects is expected to wrap up in the summer of 2020.
Validus, Home Communities Start Work on Inspire Living Project
Construction is underway for a new Inspired Living assisted living and memory care community in Royal Palm Beach, Florida.
The 104-apartment community is a joint project among Validus Senior Living and Home Communities Company. Amenities will include a gym focused on older adults, all-day dining, a dog park, garden courtyards, entertainment spaces, and secure outdoor life stations for memory care residents. Home Communities also partnered with Reichman International Realty Advisors on the project.
The community is scheduled to open in the late summer or early fall of 2020.
Avamere Poised to Break Ground on Villas at Utah Community
Ovation at Sienna Hills, an Avamere “micro CCRC” in St. George, Utah, has broken ground on 25 new villas.
The villas will range from 1,280 to 1,316 square feet, with nearby access to the community’s planned clubhouse, pickleball courts, courtyard, a rooftop deck, a business center, a library, a theater room, a convenience store and a chapel.
Both the villas and the community itself are slated to open in fall of 2020.
Primrose Starts Work in Washington
Primrose Retirement Communities recently started construction on an 86-unit senior living community in Washington.
Westland Construction will build the community, which is being financed by Plains Commerce Bank. The project is expected to be open by the winter of 2020.
Construction: Complete
Resort Lifestyle Communities Tees Up Openings for Two Projects
Resort Lifestyle Communities is opening two senior living communities.
The company is schedule to hold a grand opening for its Arrowhead Valley Retirement Resort in Peoria, Arizona, on Sept. 12. The community has amenities such as valet parking, a 150-seat theater and programming for residents.
Resort Lifestyle Communities also recently opened the Cactus Valley Retirement Resort, a 128-apartment senior living community in Henderson, Nevada.
Amenities at Cactus Valley include an in-house bank, business center, pharmacy, fitness center, game room, 150-seat theater, gift shop and salon.
Civitas, StoneCreek Open Texas Community
Civitas Senior Living and StoneCreek Real Estate Partners recently held a grand opening for StoneCreek Senior Living at North Richland Hills in North Richland Hills, Texas.
The 96-unit community has amenities such as landscaped courtyards, a fitness center, a salon and a library.
Historic Property Reopens as Affordable Senior Housing
Construction has wrapped up for the Tammen Hall historic redevelopment project, which brought 49 new affordable rental apartments for older adults in Denver’s City Park West neighborhood
The eight-story property has common areas on the first floor, one- and two-bedroom apartments on the second through seventh floors, and a common area and rooftop patio on the top floor.
MGL Partners and Solvera Advisors were the project’s developers, while The Neenan Company was the community’s design-build partner.
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Construction: Planned
Sunrise Plans New Community in Canada
Sunrise Senior Living is working with construction and development firm Darwin Properties to build a new senior living community in Vancouver, British Columbia.
The community, Sunrise at Lonsdale Square, will have assisted living and memory care services for residents. The community is part of a larger redevelopment project to turn an area previously known as Harry Jerome Neighborhood Lands into a mixed-use center called Lonsdale Square with a medical office building and easy access to other medical facilities.
Construction for the new Sunrise community is expected to begin in 2020, with a possible opening date in 2022.
Mather Community Near D.C. On Track for 2020 Groundbreaking
Mather in November finalized the land purchase for the project, and the community’s first phase is almost half presold. Local regulators approved entitlements for the site in June.
As planned, The Mather will be a 378-unit life plan community spanning two high-rise towers: one that is 18 stories tall and another that is 27 stories tall. It will also include more than 18,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space.
The project is facilitated through a 50/50 joint venture partnership between Evanston, Illinois-based Mather LifeWays and Illinois-based real estate investment manager Westminster Capital.
Age-Restricted Housing Community Planned in Spain
A new community coming together in the Almeria province of Spain claims to be “Europe’s first community for active adults.”
The community, called Ambera at Desert Springs, currently consists of 400 homes and lifestyle amenities including a golf course, tennis courts, swimming pools, restaurants, activity rooms, pool tables and fitness rooms.
Home sales are officially set to start in the spring 2020.
Construction: In progress
ONE Properties, Revera Break Ground on Canada Highrise Project
Developer ONE Properties and senior living owner, operator, developer and investor Revera have announced that construction has started for the two companies’ first project together in Edmonton, Alberta.
The community, Revera Glenora Park Retirement Residence, has 290 suites across 23 stories. Amenities include multiple dining venues, an indoor saltwater swimming pool, fitness center, golf simulator, library and game room, outdoor terrace, and a salon and spa.
Under the two companies’ joint venture arrangement, ONE Properties is the project’s developer, and will oversee construction. Revera, meanwhile, will manage marketing and operations.
Civitas, Desert Land Project Coming Together in Arizona
Construction is now underway for The Bluffs of Flagstaff, a senior living community in Flagstaff, Arizona, from Desert Land Group and Civitas Senior Living.
The 204-unit community will have independent living, assisted living, and memory care services, with amenities that include an indoor pool, putting green, interior courtyard, pub and lounge, a fitness gym, an outdoor cooking area and dog parks.
The community is expected to open in the fall of 2021. The architect for the project is Kaas Wilson, the general contractor is Greenberg Construction, and the designer is is Senior by Design.
Work Underway for Ascent Community in Denver
Work is underway to turn a former milk processing and distribution center in Denver into a senior living community.
Project partners Ascent Living Communities, Focus Property Group and Blue Moon Capital Partners recently broke ground on Hilltop Reserve, a 205-unit senior living community for independent living, assisted living and memory care residents.
Planned amenities include a fitness and yoga center, an aquatics center with a lap and therapy pool and spa and multiple dining options.
Hord Coplan Macht is designing the property, with studioSIX5 working on the interior design. Rob McAdams with the Lancaster Pollard Mortgage Company arranged the community’s construction loan. Catamount Constructors is the project’s general contractor.
Construction Starts at Friendship Village Community in Arizona
Construction crews are now hard at work revitalizing Friendship Village Tempe, a Life Care Services-managed community in Tempe, Arizona.
Under a master plan from Ryan Companies, the continuing care retirement community (CCRC) will get a major facelift in the form of six new apartment buildings on its 50-acre campus. The first such building will add an extra 40 independent living apartments and 66 below-grade parking spots to the community.
Hudson Breaks Ground on First Active Adult Project
Multifamily real estate investment and development firm Hudson Capital Properties has broken ground on its first active adult community.
The project in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina — called The Retreat at Coastal Grand — will have 194 one- and two-bedroom apartments for older adults. Planned amenities include a pool, pickleball, ponds, walking trails, bocce courts, a community garden and pavilions for shade. The community will also have a clubhouse with rooms for fitness and aerobics, a demonstration kitchen, social area, multipurpose room, theater and an arts and crafts area.
Hudson Capital Properties is partnering with GHK Cape Fear Development and C&S Commercial Properties to develop The Retreat at Coastal Grand.
Pegasus Community in Texas Undergoing Renovations
Ridgmar Place, a Pegasus Senior Living-managed community in Fort Worth, Texas, is set to get a new look soon.
Workers are adding a dog park, bistro and pub, outdoor courtyard and renovating the community’s indoor saltwater pool.
If all goes according to plan, the renovations will wrap up by early 2020.
Capitol Seniors Housing Makes Headway on Active Living Community
Capitol Seniors Housing has wrapped up work on a clubhouse and two residential buildings at Siena, an “active living” community in Cinnaminson Township, New Jersey.
When construction finishes in full, the community will have 204 residences in total. Capitol Seniors Housing first acquired the community last year.
Buckner Retirement Services has officially opened Ventana by Buckner, a $240 million high-rise CCRC in Dallas.
The community spans two adjacent 12-story towers with 325 total units. The community also comes with access to programming from Cooper Aerobics, five dining venues conceptualized by chef and restaurateur Stephan Pyles and a lifelong learning program offered by Southern Methodist University (SMU).
MorningStar, Confluent Open Oregon Community
MorningStar Senior Living and Confluent Senior Living have jointly opened MorningStar of Happy Valley in the Portland, Oregon market.
The community has 87 suites, along with access to amenities such as a full bar, life enrichment room, private dining room, spa, fitness center; massage and therapy room, salon, library, theater and a chapel.
LRS Architects, Pence Construction and Thoma-Holec Design were all project partners.
Greenbrier Opens Alabama Property
Greenbrier Senior Living has announced the opening of Longleaf Liberty Park, a three-story, 95-unit community in Vestavia Hills, Alabama.
The community has amenities such as a fitness center, multiple dining venues, a movie theater, reading areas with fires and a two-story atrium.
Braemar Partners owns the community and developed it.
Greenbrier Senior Living
Greenbrier Senior Living
Mixed-Income Senior Housing Opens in Atlanta
Adair Court, a mixed-income senior housing project in Atlanta, is now open.
The 91-unit community has 19 of its units set aside for residents earning up to 50% of the area median income (AMI), and 58 units set aside for residents who make up to 60% AMI. The community also has 14 units offered at market rate.
Amenities include a multipurpose community room, fitness center, computer room, laundry facilities and a covered gazebo.
Touchmark Community in Oklahoma Unveils Renovations
The Touchmark at Coffee Creek Retirement Community in Edmond, Oklahoma, is sporting a facelift.
Interior design firm Spellman Brady remodeled the community’s independent and assisted living interiors and added a fitness club to the community’s basement in the process.
Presbyterian Senior Living Community Adds Transitional Care Unit
Westminster Village at Dover, a Presbyterian Senior Living community in Dover, Delaware, recently celebrated a ribbon-cutting for its new transitional care unit.
The unit is designed to provide services such as wound management, pain management, post-stroke, post-surgical and joint rehabilitation for older adults transitioning between the hospital and their home.
The transitional care unit is the result of a $10 million renovation that added to the community 14 private rooms with walk-in showers.
— A former TV station in San Francisco is being demolished to make way for a 13-story senior living community from Related Companies and Atria Senior Living.
In progress
— Construction has started for a $25 million, 99-unit senior living community in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Complete
— Brightview Senior Living in November celebrated the opening of a senior living community in Wayne, Pennsylvania.
A new developer and owner is joining the growing ranks of hospitality veterans seeking similar success in senior living through a combination of prudent ground-up development, targeted acquisitions and partnerships with growing operators.
Dallas-based Journey Capital owns two communities, has another two in development, and is expected to break ground on four more in 2020, Co-founder and Managing Partner Narayan Patel told Senior Housing News. Future projects include two planned for college campuses, although Patel declined to share further details on these plans.
He and his partner, Anand Patel, began exploring the senior housing space at the advice of relatives who were looking to enter the space. Having grown up managing hotels, the Patels — who met while studying at Southern Methodist University a decade ago — were sold on pursuing senior housing as an asset class after touring their first community and finding the synergies senior housing shares with hospitality.
“We were blown away. The sticks and bones [associated with hospitality] were there, along with the added care component,” Narayan Patel said.
Prior to pivoting to senior housing, the Patels worked for a Dallas-based real estate firm — Narayan as an associate, Anand as an analyst — as it grew in scale to over $1 billion in assets and partnerships with major hotel brands.
Journey Capital believes it can capitalize on Dallas’ favorable population demographics. The Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area gained over 1 million new residents from 2010 to 2018, and gained more residents in 2018 than any metropolitan area in the country, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. The metro’s over-65 demographic accounts for 10.7% of the total population. Furthermore, the area is home to 24 Fortune 500 companies, with several relocating to the area from the West Coast, Anand Patel told SHN.
But Dallas, like many metros, is contending with a rash of new senior housing construction, with 3,222 new units in the pipeline, according to data from the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care (NIC) analyzed by real estate services firm Marcus & Millichap.
The Patels are confident that modest growth and due diligence in market selection will be key to Journey Capital’s future growth. Beyond 2020, the goal is to break ground on two new projects a year over the next five years, Anand Patel told SHN.
“We don’t have a big REIT or major investors behind us [pressured to deploy] capital. We can raise capital as needed,” he said.
Journey Capital is forging relationships with young operators in growth mode. Its two communities currently online are operated by Fort Worth-based Civitas Senior Living, and Journey Capital is also partnering with a newer operator, New Braunfels, Texas-based SilverPoint Senior Living.
Journey Capital’s development pipeline includes two assisted living and memory care communities on college campuses, ranging between 65 and 82 units, along with cottages. Its future communities will range between 65 and 72 units each, ranging between independent living, assisted living and memory care.
The Patels believe a patient approach, and their hospitality experience, will allow Journey Capital to gain a foothold in a market teeming with new supply.
“Hospitality is a nice segue to senior living. The communities we want to build are ones we would want to place our parents in,” Anand Patel said.
Civitas Senior Living launched a lot of experiments to innovate operational practices in 2019, and several of them failed. But that’s not a bad thing, according to CFO Jason Dupont.
If approached correctly, even a failed experiment holds valuable lessons, he said. And given that senior living margins are under pressure from labor challenges and other market dynamics, providers must be willing to fail in order to find out what actually is effective in driving efficiencies. For Forth Worth, Texas-based Civitas, one of the biggest successes has come from a less top-down approach to financial management.
Meanwhile, the tight availability of construction labor and the rising cost of building materials has turned Civitas’ breakneck growth into steady growth. This has allowed the company to focus more on the 43 senior housing communitiesit has in its portfolio, according to Dupont.
“I think over the next two years, we’ll focus on same-community sales, and efficiencies will become a bigger part of what we’re doing and less about growth,” Dupont told Senior Housing News. “Unless, of course, that black swan event occurs and we’re looking at an environment where really high-quality communities are cheap to buy, in which case, all bets are off.”
The company’s biggest current challenge is staffing, both in terms of finding workers and grappling with wage increases. To help attract workers in a red-hot job market, Civitas has forged partnerships with tech providers — and company executives have handed out business cards to exceptional customer service professionals they’ve encountered in restaurants and airplanes. Last year, the company earned its Great Place to Work certification.
The following interview was edited for length and clarity:
SHN: Would you say it’s true that senior living has gotten more operationally and financially complex over the last few years? And if so, how has that placed new demands on you as a CFO?
Jason Dupont: The answer is absolutely.
The operational complexity has come from a more sophisticated resident, a more sophisticated employee. And so we’re expected as a company, if we want to be a competitive company, to not only provide additional services to our residents that go above and beyond your typical bingo game. And employees have more sophisticated needs, not just salary, but also the health care benefits, ancillary benefits, that come with a modern environment. So, those are the operational side challenges.
The financial challenges just come from a more dynamic and competitive environment that we’ve seen as this industry has grown. I started just after 2009 in this business, and in the last 11 years, the sheer growth in this industry has been amazing. And what it has brought is a lot of different people from outside industries into senior living with a lot of different expertise. And it has upped the level of competition.
So, you’re seeing different types of financial structures, you’re seeing different types of acquisitions, very sophisticated groups with complicated financial structures that want to be in the industry and need to interface with operationally focused companies like ours, which is where the challenge comes for me. And learning about these new groups, what their priorities are, and then finding ways to incorporate those priorities and not change the value proposition that we’re presenting to our employees and residents.
When you say priorities, give me an example of where some of these priorities lie.
For a private equity firm that has a very large and diverse portfolio, they don’t necessarily see senior living for the complicated and difficult industry that it is, from an operational perspective. What they see is a different risk portfolio that allows them to diversify. And so they may want to push rent, reduce capital expenditures, make the project more efficient, none of which is bad in and of itself. And a lot of those goals are shared by us. But at the same time, we’re also in the trenches fighting for lots of different groups of people that have different goals in mind.
And so, pushing the bottom line might not always be the most effective way to get long-term value out of an asset. Our challenge is, how do we address those very straightforward and sometimes aggressive financial goals, and how do we translate that into long-term operational success where we can make everybody a winner?
When did you start with Civitas?
I started with Civitas in 2013. I was good friends with a banker who had left his bank to start a company with an operator who had just opened up shop. I met with both of them, and it was an interesting meeting because I was looking to grow as an employee. I was a director of finance, and I wanted to be in that CFO role. But when I sat down with [Founder and CEO] Wayne Powell, I learned very quickly that what I really wanted was to work with someone who had an enormous amount of passion for the operation side of the business. And that is what drew me to Civitas and what got me excited. And honestly, it’s what keeps me going to work every single day.
We have an entire side of our business that doesn’t really focus on the real estate side at all. Their job is to make sure that the residents and employees are happy, and we do a great job at this company of making sure that that is our first priority and that drives everything we do. That wasn’t necessarily true at the last company I was at. It was more of a real estate and development company, which is where I learned my craft. So, to move to the side where operations are the No. 1 priority by a long shot was a little bit of a rocky change. But honestly, it was exactly what I was looking for.
Were there any parts about getting into operations that surprised you?
My expertise early on was in financial transactions, learning how to structure deals efficiently, learning how to exit deals efficiently, whether that be through capital markets or through agency lending, all those kinds of different ways that we do that. And then I came into this company and every day was a conversation about on-the-ground key performance indicators, like turnover ratios, receivables, PPD calculations on everything from food to laundry detergent.
And that granular focus, which Wayne brought from the nursing home industry, really helped to adjust my perspective of how you can make a project successful. Not through necessarily financial engineering, although that always helps, but from the bottom up. If the guts of the project are solid, even if financial markets aren’t where you need them to be, you can still run a profitable building.
The industry has changed so much since 2013. What were some moments of particular challenge or change during that time, and what you did to work through those moments?
By far our biggest challenge over the last seven years has been staffing. That has been an avalanche coming down the mountain that everyone knew was coming but didn’t necessarily prepare well for. Some people were surprised by it.
Luckily, we had a conversation — I think it was in 2015 at our annual meeting — where Wayne sat all of us down and said, look, the people that we have now, we’ve been blessed, but we are not going to be able to continue to hire high-quality people at reasonable prices much longer. And he was absolutely right.
The industry not only heated up to where more competition led to more groups of people hiring from the same pool, but also, the economy in general has been extremely strong over the last seven years. And that has really driven labor prices up. It’s made it more difficult to hold on to people as more opportunities to earn a little bit more are available to them. And that goes from your hourly employees all the way up to your top-level salary employees. There is not a part of our labor sector that hasn’t been affected.
What we have focused on as an organization is really two things. One is, how do we learn to hire the best people? And we’ve done an incredible job of bringing in a lot of technological systems that help us not only vet people on the front end, through programs like Greenhouse, but also to understand our employees better, understand our teams and how they work together. We use a program called Predictive Index to help us with that. We’re still neophytes when it comes to learning that stuff, but we make the effort, which I think is incredible. What we pay attention to, most of the time is, what do our turnover ratios look like? What does our employee satisfaction look like? We recently put in a lot of effort to do the surveys necessary to qualify as a Great Place to Work. And it’s obviously nice to see that on your email, it’s nice to brag about it when you’re at a conference. But really, the value of that for us was getting our employees to fill out satisfaction surveys about working for Civitas, what does it mean, how does it feel to be an employee at our company.
We got a lot of really good data about how we’re doing in building culture and instilling the passion that we have at the corporate level down into our line employees. And that has really helped us overcome that challenge of finding good people at the right price by using all of those tools together.
What is your turnover today?
The turnover numbers that we’re seeing today are about half of what we saw last year, and that biggest change has come in our hourly employees. And that is something that we’re extremely proud of, but it is something that is going to continue to challenge us going forward.
So, our goal is not just to keep that number steady, but also to continue to see that number go down over the next 12 months as we implement some pretty unique hiring practices. And we’re really pushing our hiring managers to go into places where they’re not comfortable to find talent outside of our industry, that could possibly be a good fit for us.
What are some of these areas that they might not be comfortable hiring from? Are we talking about hospitality or retail?
Those are perfectly valid, and I think places that a lot of people are looking. But also, a lot of our focus has been on early career recruiting. That is partnering with universities, getting into some of those programs, providing resources to those universities to help with their teaching and their classroom curriculum. And in exchange, we can get some interns and some trainees and really take a longer-term approach to hiring. You may need an ED right now, but if you have been working that process for two to three years, hopefully you have a pool of candidates that are unique, because they may not have a lot of experience in your industry. At the same time, they may be better trained than the candidates that you’re looking at currently, just because you’ve been participating in that process the entire time. So, it’s about taking a longer-term approach.
A challenge that Wayne gave us early on — which I found quite a bit of enjoyment in — is if you’re sitting at a restaurant or you’re on an airplane and you have an exceptional service experience, the expectation of our company is that you hand that person your card and you let them know that there is an entire exciting career awaiting them if they if they ever want to make a change. And believe it or not, we have some pretty good employees that have come from that kind of experience. So, the challenge is for every single person in our company to be a recruiter, and every single one of us to be an ambassador. Not only for our industry, but also for our company.
Are margins under pressure this year?
Yeah, absolutely. Margins are always under pressure. Labor cost is going to be your biggest driver. It’s by far the largest expense we have on our P&L. But, at the same time, we also see technology and maintenance being large drivers as well. Technology, because we’re constantly needing to innovate and bring new systems into our ecosystem in order to stay competitive and in order to provide the quality that we want to.
I already mentioned the two systems we brought on on the employment side, with Greenhouse and Predictive Index. On our care side, we partner closely with Eldermark. A couple of years ago, we switched to RealPage as our accounting partner and we have a new sales and marketing system. I can go on and on. We have just made a real effort to push technology into our ecosystem, because as we’ve grown to the size we are, we have learned that getting data to the right people at the right time and not overburdening our employees with manual reporting was going to be a key to staying nimble and flexible.
And then on the maintenance side, in these buildings that we built brand-new — even three or four years ago — a lot of the technology and features inside the building are starting to become outdated because our residents are just becoming sophisticated way more quickly than we anticipated. We need to be able to provide the living environment that they expect and that their children expect, and that’s been a challenge to our bottom line.
We’ve done a lot of that in 2019, and a lot of those initiatives have failed, which is great. It’s not ideal, but at the same time you learn something, especially if you do it correctly. A lot of the ones that were super successful we will be rolling out to the entire portfolio this year, and hopefully that will help keep those margins steady or improve them. And we will continue to test the ones that failed to hopefully make them better and improve our system overall.
We have a lot of experimental programs and with a portfolio of our size, we get the opportunity to run pilot initiatives, which is probably the coolest thing we’ve come up with in the last couple of years. We will take three or four assets, and a lot of the time they don’t need to be geographically centered. They can be a single equity partner that agrees to use their facilities or communities as a test, and we will roll out an initiative and see what kind of change we can have. It creates a little bit of a laboratory. At the same time, you know if that an initiative is successful, but not as successful as we want, it allows us to tweak it before we push it out to 40 or 50 assets.
What’s been most successful so far?
One of our biggest successes was restructuring the way we do accounting and the way we build our leadership inside of our financial management team.
In the past, you tried to centralize as much as you can. And you put a lot of pressure on your corporate team to get the numbers right, to do everything correctly, to be the check and balance against what’s going on at the asset level.
What we realized is, that takes away a ton of the buy-in from property-level employees for approvals, understanding of where their expenses are coming from, what vendors they’re using, what those relationships with the vendors mean. What we did was we pushed a lot of our accounting responsibilities down to the asset level. We gave a lot of agency to our executive directors and our VPOs for expense approval, vendor approval, understanding what their bottom line means and what their spend-down reports mean.
They now do budget variance analysis actively throughout the month, instead of just at the close period. We now have the capability of closing every single one of our projects in four days. And we are able to provide financial reporting within seven days of any end-of-month period or any fiscal period.
The real effect of that, other than being able to gloat as a CFO, is that we can now make operational changes very quickly. Our teams aren’t waiting halfway through the next month to find out that they blew the budget for the previous month, or that something that they had done — an initiative that they had rolled out, or a labor change that they were trying to make — had a very negative or a very positive impact. They now have that information within a week of the end of the month, and so they’re able to make decisions faster. And that has given us an edge when it comes to melding the financial structure with the operational structure.
How has the availability and the cost of capital been this year? Do you see tightening of debt or equity markets in the near term?
The cost of capital has generally stayed flat or gone down a little bit in 2019. I don’t anticipate that will change very much in 2020. The entire time I’ve been in this industry, debt markets have been aggressive, other than during the lack of availability right after the Great Recession.
Banking has been the easy part of this job. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex is one of the fastest growing in the nation. And it’s the financial hub of the Texas market. So, I think I’ve been a little bit spoiled on that side. We have a lot of really large, successful regional banks here, which has given us a lot of access to the debt markets that maybe some other operators haven’t had.
At the same time, we’ve started to grow our relationships nationally over the last two to three years. We’re starting to get partnerships with much larger international banks like CIBC and Capital One that come with [their] own benefits and challenges, but at the same time, it gives us a view into the larger market nationwide and it still looks wide open.
On the equity side, I think it’s pretty much the same thing. Private equity is still running hot. We’re starting to see a lot of private REITs come back into the market, which we’re excited to talk to. But for us, we’ve stuck with the same five to six partners throughout our time as an organization, and that loyalty is paid off for us. We have very strong development and private equity partners that trust us, and we trust them. As we move forward, we shouldn’t have any problems with access to capital. But at the same time, I think that the overall market shouldn’t also have a problem with that access either.
What is your take on mergers and acquisitions and development right now?
If you’re in the market to buy, but you’re not a private equity player or you’re just using your own company’s money to try to grow organically, it is not a great market right now. We cannot compete with people like Capitol Seniors Housing or Artemis. Their cost of capital is just significantly different than ours, their scope is so much different than ours. So we have not seen a lot of success in acquisitions.
Over the last couple of years, we’ve had a couple of private deals where we manage the property and then acquire the asset through that management contract. But open-market deals are just not where we have been very successful. At the same time, we have been able to grow through acquisitions through our partners. We’ve sold a few assets over the last couple of years but they’ve been strategic sales where we want to grow a partnership, or where we want to start a partnership with someone.
And the markets that these assets are in are ones that we already have a very strong operational presence. What’s funny is, from the very beginning, our financial team has always planned for that inevitable day where cost of capital is low and the market is flooded with supply. And over the last seven years, that just hasn’t happened. We are still preparing for that day, and would be excited if that day ever came. But in the current market environment, we will leave the acquisitions to the larger players. If we find a development that we like, we will pursue it. Right now, we have one project under construction that we started in 2019. And we’re actively looking for more, but at the same time, we’re only really looking for high-barrier-to-entry markets. And those are becoming harder and harder to find. And so I would say our development is slowing down. But you know, it’s with a purpose.
We really are excited with the size of our portfolio right now, and we want more investment opportunities. But at the same time, we’re really not in a position to reach at this point.
Civitas hadset a goal to open 20 new communities in the next few years. How is that coming along? And how are you thinking about growth in the years ahead?
We’re definitely on track to hit that number. Twenty-one communities over three years was basically what we were looking at. And we’re right on target for that.
Construction has been a challenge across the board. We own our own construction company and they’ve had challenges with labor affecting subcontractors and issues in China affecting material prices. At the same time, our third-party general contractors on our other development projects have also seen slowdowns in other markets outside of Texas. Because of construction slowdowns and timing on delivering product to market, we’ve seen a little bit of a stretch to that timeline, I would say maybe three to six months, on average.
That has honestly taken a lot of pressure off of our operations team as it is allowed to allow them to get a little bit more time into each new building as it’s coming online. It’s a little bit of a blessing, little bit of a curse. What we thought would be breakneck growth turned into steady growth.
I think it’s also given us the opportunity to look internally at our existing portfolio and really figure out where we needed to strengthen things. And I think that’s another reason why we decided to purposely slow down on our development side, to really find the right partnerships, find the right markets and make sure that we were making those good decisions.
If you would say that, early on in Civitas, we were 80% growth and 20% internally focused, I would say that that’s probably slipped to more like 60% growth and 40% internally focused. I think over the next two years, we’ll focus on same-community sales, and efficiencies will become a bigger part of what we’re doing. Unless, of course, that black swan event occurs and we’re looking at an environment where really high-quality communities are cheap to buy, in which case, all bets are off.
More and more providers these days are exploring different payment options like Medicare Advantage. Is that on Civitas’ radar at all?
We’re not actively exploring it, but we do have a team at our executive level who has spent a lot of time researching it. Our chief operating officer specifically has been tasked with bringing in third-party groups that are offering partnerships in this area, and we’ve sat and listened to them.
What we’ve come away with is, there’s nothing to do right now except prepare. So, what we have started doing across the board is building relationships within the networks that are going to exist once those payment systems are fully operational.
We’ve spent more time focusing on building out hospital relationships, building our internal key performance indicators, so that we have the ability to provide the reporting necessary to be part of that kind of network. A lot of the focus on those groups is the ability to provide statistics that say we are actually improving the health outcomes of the residents that are being referred to our facility or community. And if you’re not able to produce those statistics and follow and track that, then you can’t really be a good partner inside those payer networks. What we’re doing now is building an infrastructure internally to prepare for that. But we’ve taken no active steps to sort of pursue those relationships. I think it’s still in an incubation phase, but we want to be ready once the market is ready to start providing those different payment sources.
We do have a lot of rural properties in our portfolio, specifically in East Texas. We utilize the Star Plus program in Texas, which is a state Medicaid program. It’s not a huge part of our portfolio. I would say, at 10% of our assets, it’s 10% of the residents. We are very familiar with how to bill for those services, and we know how to work with those managed care providers.
You know, it’s not a business model that we’re particularly fond of, in the sense that it’s a lot of extra work, it’s a lot of extra labor and training on your staff to implement those systems. But at the same time, in a community like in Athens, Texas, where the population isn’t large and the median income is lower, it’s allowed us to stay 100% full, and it’s allowed us to serve the community by providing subsidized housing. So, again, it’s not a huge part of our portfolio, but it’s something that I think we’ve learned to do well.
As a CFO, what sort of data or metrics are you interested in analyzing? And how is this informing your leadership?
Like I said, our biggest challenge, by far, has been labor. Early on, when I first started, we were focusing on the same things I think most people do. You’re looking at your operating margin, you’re looking at your PPD indicators for food and your other variable costs. But really what’s been driving our profitability is things like turnover. Cost-to-recruit is also a big one. Finding ways to make those numbers more efficient has really been an effective way to keep our costs down.
I learned over the last two years that one of your largest variances to your labor is actually in training hours. So, if you’re turning over your line staff — your caregivers, your med aides, your cooks, your housekeepers — at a significant clip, it’s almost like you’re paying overtime to those employees because you have to bring them back in. You have to dedicate a significant number of training hours before you put them on the floor. By bringing down that turnover number, there’s a knock-on effect throughout the entire system. And that affects profitability.
How do you define what a healthy margin is in this business?
We have a very large and a very diverse portfolio. We have some infill properties in some urban markets. We have some rural properties in towns of 2,000 to 3,000 people. So, the way we define a healthy margin is project by project.
There are some communities that are going to run really hot, like urban markets with high rates and easy access to labor. At the same time, you may have a rural property with very low access to labor and very low pricing. But you still have to provide an environment where, when the employee gets up in the morning, they want to be coming to your community, because they’re going to have pride when they get there. And that means you may be putting more into capital improvements than you would in a hotter market, because the building needs to be a higher quality in a rural market, because the margins aren’t as aggressive.
Do you ever feel like you’re you’re fighting to protect your margin, while maybe others at the company are free to focus on things like mission?
I think the challenge has been, as the margins have compressed over the last seven years, how do we provide top quality care? A lot of times, especially when considering the cost of capital improvements, the cost of keeping a building relevant after multiple years, those two things can really conflict with each other. Because when you’re taking 40% of your profits and putting it back into a building, it can really affect what your investors are seeing and what you’re trying to achieve for them.
What we’ve done at Civitas is take a more holistic approach. We don’t ever talk about margin without mission, and vice versa. We sit down as a leadership team and we make it everybody’s responsibility. On the operation side, all the way down to the EDs of the property, they’re responsible for looking at their own P&Ls, for understanding them and for understanding the impacts that their decisions have.
Everybody on the financials and accounting side of our company is responsible for understanding what our mission is and how we can help to make it effective. So, when someone comes up with a new idea or a new initiative that is driving costs without a revenue offset, it’s everybody’s job to sit down and take a look at that. We decide how to turn this into either a revenue-driving item, or push the cost down to make this initiative so efficient that it’s negligible to the margin and that the value we’ll get out of it long-term will offset any initial cost issues.
It’s a humongous struggle, even for a for-profit company, especially one that is privately held by a passionate owner who cares deeply for seniors.
When you have to do rate increases in order to cover a lot of these initiatives, those rate increases can sometimes seem punitive if you’re already at the top of the market. But at the same time, if you can sit down and realize, okay, but we’re also adding these four or five value components to the asset at the same time, and these rate increases will help cover this higher-quality experience, then there’s a much easier decision to be made there.
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Construction: Planned
Presbyterian Manors Plans Colorado Community
Senior living nonprofit Presbyterian Manors of Mid-America is planning to open a senior living community in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
The community, Aberdeen Ridge, is planned to have 235 units and amenities such as multiple dining venues, gardens, walking trails, a fitness center, heated pool, coffee shop/bistro and dedicated spaces for activities and wellness programs.
Artis to Open Community in California Mixed-Use Development
Artis Senior Living has acquired a a 176,269-square-foot property for a forthcoming memory care community in a mixed-use project in Morgan Hill, California.
The larger mixed-use development, Evergreen Village from Evergreen Devco, spans roughly 20.43 acres and is set to include hotel and restaurant uses in addition to the memory care component.
Erickson Living Project Announces Second Construction Phase
Siena Lakes, an Erickson Living continuing care retirement community (CCRC) slated to open in Naples, Florida, is planning a second construction phase.
The project’s second phase — which was initiated when more than 80% of the CCRC’s 175 phase-one apartment homes were reserved — will include two new independent living buildings with 180 apartments.
Construction on the second phase is slated to begin in the summer of 2020 and last until the following year. Bessolo Design Group is the project’s architect, while Kaufman Lynn Construction is its construction consultant.
New York CCRC Announces Expansion Plans
Jefferson’s Ferry, a CCRC in South Setauket, New York, is preparing to expand.
The community seeks to add 75 units, a memory care community and amenities such as a new marketplace cafe, bistro and bar and a “destination dining room” that will serve different types of cuisines.
Jefferson’s Ferry
Jefferson’s Ferry
Construction: In progress
New Operator Avail to Debut in Tennessee
An industry veteran is launching a new senior living operating company with plans to grow out of a base of operations in Tennessee.
The new operator, Avail Senior Living, is currently building a 72-unit community in Cleveland, Tennessee. The $13.5 million community will have amenities such as a salon, fitness room, two dining rooms, walking paths, gardens, screen porches and other common spaces for residents.
Monthly rates for residents will start at around $3,500 to $4,500. It’s slated to open in the spring of 2021.
Leading Avail Senior Living is Chris Beckstrand, a current regional director of operations for Greenbrier Senior Living. Beckstrand has also worked at Morning Pointe Senior Living as an area director of operations; and at Sagora Senior Living as an executive director.
Avail is financed by a group of investors located in Tennessee and Utah, and Rob Cuthbertson is developing the project with Beckstrand. Southern Heritage Bank is providing lending for the community. Other project partners include Neuhoff Taylor Architects and Morgan Construction, two firms with past senior living experience.
If all goes according to plan with its first project, Avail Senior Living will aim to grow by about one new community per year, Beckstrand said.
Avail Senior Living
Avail Senior Living
Solinity Project in Florida Coming Together
A new Solinity community is in the works in Plant City, Florida.
The community, dubbed Palm Cove Living, will have 47 apartments and offer assisted living, memory care and respite care services.
The community is currently under construction and is planned to open in the fall of 2020.
Solinity
Solinity
Pegasus Community in Louisiana Slated for Upgrades
Laketown Village, a Pegasus Senior Living assisted living and memory care community in Kenner, Louisiana, is getting a facelift.
The renovations are slated to include new flooring, countertops and paint in the community’s apartments and common rooms. The work will also include a new bistro and a beauty salon.
If all goes according to plan, the work will wrap up in April.
Pegasus Senior Living
Pegasus Senior Living
Florida CCRC Expands With 3 Projects
Shell Point, a CCRC in Fort Myers, Florida, is expanding with three ongoing construction projects.
The community is planning a 44,000-square-foot performing arts center that set to open in the fall, a new independent living neighborhood set to open this summer and a new 180-bed skilled nursing facility with private rooms set to open next year.
The community celebrated a “topping off” ceremony for the performing arts center in January.
Oakmont Community Opens Information Center
An Oakmont Senior Living community on track to open this summer has a new information center for prospective residents.
The community, Oakmont of Evergreen, is slated to have 101 apartment homes and amenities such as a salon, private movie theater and resident gardens.
Oakmont Senior Living
Oakmont Senior Living
Construction: Complete
Balfour Opens Michigan Community
Balfour Senior Living has opened a senior living community in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
The community, Balfour Ann Arbor, has 152 apartments and offers independent living, assisted living and memory care services. Amenities include a fitness center and pool, multiple dining venues and transportation in a chauffeured Tesla vehicle.
Civitas, PremCap Open Community in Texas
Civitas Senior Living and PremCap Senior Living have opened West Fork at Weatherford, a senior living community in Weatherford, Texas.
The 89-unit community carries a western-themed design motif, with horses and other rugged elements included in the design throughout the community. The community’s amenities include a salon, creative arts studio, men’s lounge, fitness center and multiple dining options.
PMB, GenCare Open Community in Washington State
PMB and GenCare have opened a senior living community in a mixed-use waterfront village in Tacoma, Washington.
The six-story community, GenCare Lifestyle at Point Ruston, has 155 apartments and includes a services from a partnership with health system MultiCare. Amenities include a pool, gym, wellness center, movie theater, multiple dining venues, a media room and a salon.
Harrison Street helped finance the project. Other project partners included the architects and designers at Erdman, City National Bank, design consultant Wattenbarger Architects, Husted Design and general contractor MC Construction.
— Dominium is building a 238-unit affordable senior housing development in Stonecrest, Georgia. The company is tackling a variety of projects around the U.S., including a $130 million project to bring senior housing to the site of a former mall in Minneapolis.
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Construction: Planned
Belmont Village Eyes Mixed-Use Community in Los Angeles
Belmont Village Senior Living is working on plans for a new mixed-use, intergenerational community in Los Angeles.
Plans submitted as part of a proposed development show a 12-story mixed-use building with 176 senior housing units. The plans also call for the construction of a church administration building and school next to the community.
Project partners include Huitt-Zollars and KFA Architecture. Local news publication Urbanize first reported on the project.
Condor Partners, Solera Planning Chicago Community
Developer Condor Partners and Solera Senior Living are collaborating on a new, 163-unit luxury seniors housing property in Evanston, Illinois.
The community, called Trulee Evanston, is expected to cost about $75 million in total construction costs. The nine-story project is planned to have a blend of private independent living, assisted living and memory care units, including amenities such as multiple terraces and views of downtown Evanston and Lake Michigan.
The project is due for completion in 2021. JLL Senior Director Joel Mendes led the debt and equity team representing the developer.
Condor Partners/Solera Senior Living
Condor Partners/Solera Senior Living
Independent Living Community Planned in North Carolina
Plans are in motion to develop a new independent living community with 138 units in Cary, North Carolina.
Shelbourne Healthcare Development and ARCO Living Group are collaborating on the five-story community. Planned amenities include an indoor pool, a beauty and barber shop, indoor and outdoor fitness areas, and a bistro and bar.
The project is set for completion in the summer of 2021.
Shelbourne Healthcare Development/ARCO Living Group
Shelbourne Healthcare Development/ARCO Living Group
Atlas Announces Expansion at South Carolina Community
Atlas Senior Living has plans to add to its Fairview Park community in Simpsonville, South Carolina.
The expansion, dubbed Legacy Reserve at Fairview Park, is slated to come with 110 independent living units to the assisted living and memory care campus. A groundbreaking ceremony is tentatively scheduled for after the Covid-19 isolation period ends.
Panorama Plans Two Los Angeles Communities
Panorama Senior Housing is collaborating with KTGY Architecture + Planning on two senior living communities slated for Los Angeles.
The first is an 80-room assisted living and memory care community near Beverly Hills with a second-floor memory care wing and a rooftop deck on part of the fifth floor with bocce ball, a barbecue area, putting green and other outdoor activities. The U-shaped building is also planned to have a multipurpose patio area, fire pits and raised planters for gardening.
The second project is another assisted living and memory care community planned for the LA neighborhood of Eagle Rock. This community will have 109 rooms for residents as well as a bistro, main dining room, activity room, theater, hair salon, library and living room, physical therapy and fitness room and an outdoor game room. The community is broken up into two buildings: one that is five stories tall, and another that is four stories plus a rooftop deck. Both are connected by a ground-level courtyard and an underground parking lot.
Construction: In progress
Discovery Senior Living Project Underway in Florida
Discovery Senior Living on Feb. 26 announced it broke ground on on a new community in Bonita Springs, Florida.
The nearly $50 million community, Discovery Village At Sarasota Bay, is slated to have 198 units and amenities such as a clubhouse with multiple dining options, movie theater, salon spa and barbershop, fitness center and a bar and bistro with a pizza oven.
The project is expected to open in the fall of 2021. Project partners include architect Architectural Concepts, interior designer Discovery Design Concepts and general contractor Henning Holdings. Kayne Anderson, Healthpeak Properties and Gulfside Homes provided financing for the project.
Construction: Complete
RLC Opens Arkansas Community
Resort Lifestyle Communities (RLC) has opened an independent living community in Little Rock, Arkansas.
The new community, Chenal Pines, has 128 apartments and amenities such as an in-house bank, business center, pharmacy, fitness center, game room, 150-seat theater, gift shop and a salon.
Resort Lifestyle Communities
Resort Lifestyle Communities
Civitas, Guttman Open Ketucky Community
Guttman Properties and Civitas Senior Living in March celebrated the opening of The Grand Senior Living, a community just outside of Louisville in Prospect, Kentucky.
The 177-unit community comes with an indoor heated swimming pool, bocce ball court, putting green, billiards room, arts studio, salon, multiple dining venues, a dog spa and a gallery that showcases a rotating collection of art.
In the Pipeline is brought to you by the Senior Housing News Architecture & Design Awards, an annual competition that recognizes cutting-edge design, excellence, and innovation in senior living. View this year’s winning entries here.
Planned
Avenida Plans Active Adult Project Near Nashville
Avenida Partners is planning a new active adult community in Hendersonville, Tennessee.
The 138-unit community, Avenida Hendersonville, is slated to have apartments in one- and two-bedroom styles with one or two bathrooms each. The plans also call for about 6,000 square feet of amenity space, with a clubhouse, theater, dining room, fitness center and outdoor amenities such as a grill station, gardens and dog park.
The McShane Construction Company is handling the project’s construction. Avenida Hendersonville is set for completion in May 2022.
Avenida Partners Avenida Partners
Civitas, StoneCreek Plan Houston Community
Civitas Senior Living and StoneCreek Real Estate Partners are planning a new community in Houston, Texas.
The companies plan to redevelop the Copperfield Racquet and Health Club in Northwest Houston into StoneCreek of Copperfield, a 98,000 square-foot community with 12 independent living villas and 92 assisted living and memory care residences. Planned amenities include a salon, creative arts studio, fitness center and multiple dining venues.
StoneCreek of Copperfield is a joint effort among developer StoneCreek Real Estate Partners, manager Civitas, Pi Architects and interior design firm Senior By Design. Construction is set to begin later this month, with a planned 2022 opening.
New ‘Town Square’ Adult Day Franchise On Tap for Florida
Florida TS1 LLC, a franchisee of Town Square, is planning to open a new location in Sarasota, Florida.
The franchisees recently signed a lease on an 11,120 square foot space, with plans to turn it into Town Square Palmer Ranch. The concept is a 1950s-themed day center for older adults living with Alzheimer’s and dementia. Residents have access to storefronts in an indoor streetscape, including a diner, theater, library, pub, city hall and health club.
Michael Finn and business partner Wendy Rickenbach-Barclay are behind the project. George Brusco of Ian Black Real Estate represented the property’s landlord, BLDG Sarasota and Bacael Sarasota in the lease transaction. Gina Giuggio of Newmark represented the tenant. If all goes according to plan, construction will begin later this month and the community will open this summer.
Willow Valley Communities Plans Senior Living Tower in Pennsylvania
A new project from Willow Valley Communities is promising to change the cityscape of downtown Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
The organization is planning to open its multi-story, mixed-use senior living tower in Lancaster. As planned, the 20-story community will come with 147 two- and three-bedroom residences and street-level restaurants and retail.
Willow Valley is working with architectural firm Gensler on the community. Construction is set to begin in 2022.
Willow Valley Communities Willow Valley Communities
Live Oak Financing Clears Way for Several Projects, Including for ALG
Recent financing from Live Oak Bank has put several senior living into motion.
Last month, Live Oak closed an $8.5 million construction loan for ALG Senior to support the development of a 58-unit independent and assisted living project in Reidsville, North Carolina.
Live Oak Bank also closed on an acquisition and renovation loan for a joint-venture project between Prevarian Senior Living and Harrison Street. The loan covered the acquisition of a 129-unit independent and assisted living community in Lakeland, Florida. The project partners are planning renovations at the property that include a memory care wing, new amenities, common areas and more licensed care beds.
In Texas, Live Oak closed a $13 million construction loan for Phoenix Senior Living, which is seeking to develop a 56-unit independent living cottage project in Dallas, Georgia. Additionally, Live Oak Bank closed a $24.9 million construction loan for Columbia Pacific Real Estate Fund III to develop a 127-unit assisted living and memory care community in Brookfield, Connecticut.
In progress
Long Island Community Breaks Ground on $89M Expansion
Jefferson’s Ferry, a senior living community on Long Island in South Setauket, New York, is expanding.
The work will add 60 one- and two-bedroom independent living apartment homes, a new health and wellness center, fitness center, bistro, marketplace cafe, and new dining options. Jefferson’s Ferry is also planning a new memory care building and renovations in the common areas in its assisted living and health care centers.
Project partners include KDA Architects, Tritec Building Company, HJ Sims and Merlino Design.
Allegro Makes Progress on New Jersey Community
Allegro Senior Living is nearing an opening day for Allegro in Harrington Park, a 184-unit community in Harrington Park, New Jersey.
Planned amenities include an indoor and outdoor pool, sauna and steam room, fitness center, movie theater and multiple dining venues. The community is also equipped with bi-ionization air purification technology for infection control.
The community is currently set to open in the early part of this year.
Georgia Life Plan Community Nears Opening Day
Presbyterian Village Athens, a forthcoming life plan community in Athens, Georgia, is on track to begin welcoming its first residents early this year.
The $143 million community is currently under construction. Plans call for 103 cottages, 12 villas and 100 apartment homes for independent living residents, along with 100 additional apartments for residents needing assisted living, memory care, skilled nursing or rehab services.
Amenities include walking trails, a fitness center, tennis and pickleball courts, an indoor saltwater pool, pub and billiards room, hair salons and multiple dining venues. The community also has a Plasma Air ionization system as an infection control design feature.
Presbyterian Village Athens partnered with RW Allen Construction on the community’s construction.
Presbyterian Village Athens Presbyterian Village Athens
Complete
Pacific Retirement Opens Mirabella at ASU Project in Arizona
Pacific Retirement Services (PRS) has opened its long-awaited Mirabella at ASU project in Tempe, Arizona.
The $252 million, high-rise life plan community sits on the campus of Arizona State University (ASU). Earlier plans called for 304 units, with apartment and penthouse dwellings that range from 751 square feet to 2,665 square feet in size.
Residents of the community have access to continuing education opportunities as well as amenities and services offered on the college campus.
Ankrom Moisan Architects designed the project, and McCarthy Building Companies built it.
Jared Hail Jared Hail
South Carolina CCRC Completes Expansion
The Woodlands at Furman, a continuing care retirement community (CCRC) next to Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, has put the finishing touches on a 13,000-square-foot expansion project.
The building, dubbed the “Community Village,” represents a $4.5 million investment. Its completion adds to the community a wellness center with pneumatic and cardio equipment, therapy pool, massage room, day spa, gym, locker room and a multi-purpose room.
Community Village at The Woodlands at Furman Community Village at The Woodlands at Furman
Other noteworthy projects:
Planned
— Plans are moving forward for a $30 million community at the site of a former farm in York Township, Pennsylvania.
— A nursing facility in Lincoln County, Missouri, is adding more assisted living beds as part of a $2 million expansion project.
In progress
— Aspens Senior Living has broken ground on a 159-unit community in a master-planned community in Greenville, South Carolina.
— Vitality Senior Services recently broke ground on a new memory care community in Jeffersonville, Indiana.
Complete
— National Church Residences over the summer completed a $2 million renovation at a community in Hillard, Ohio, and changed the community’s name from Mill Run to Harmony Trace.
When the first doses of the Covid-19 vaccine arrived in senior living communities late last year, residents rolled up their sleeves with gusto. But the same was not true for the industry’s workers.
And that has not changed in the roughly two months since then, according to a recent National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care (NIC) survey of 84 senior housing and skilled nursing operators across the U.S. While an average of about 80% of the surveyed operators’ residents have received at least their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, just 50% of staff had done the same.
Today, that list now includes Silverado Senior Living. And there are other providers that plan to set their own mandates in the future, including Hickory, North Carolina-based ALG Senior and Aegis Living, which is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. Additionally, there are some companies that have not set mandates, but also have not ruled out making vaccines mandatory for workers at a later date. These include Winter Park, Florida-based Holiday Retirement and Forth Worth, Texas-based Civitas Senior Living.
This is not to say that mandates are the only way to achieve high rates of staff vaccination. For example, about 80% of the Belmont Village workforce has been vaccinated, without a mandate in place, CEO Patricia Will said recently on an SHN+ TALKS appearance. Aegis also has a high staff vaccination rate on a company-wide basis, but President Kris Engskov noted that some communities have higher rates while others have lower rates.
Whether to implement a mandate is a tricky decision, and there clearly is no industry consensus on the right approach. Other sectors — including airlines and retail — also are debating whether to impose mandates or offer certain incentives for workers to get vaccinated.
But time is of the essence.
For Silverado CEO Loren Shook, boosting vaccination rates sooner rather than later is important — doubly so when taking into account Covid-19’s new genetic variants, some of which are spreading rapidly across the globe.
“We know there will be more variants coming, and we don’t know what those will look like,” Shook told Senior Housing News. “So, it is incumbent upon us as leaders in the company to make the hard decision that … you have to be vaccinated to work here.”
‘We don’t have a choice’
Although the senior living industry is seeing lower vaccination rates among its workers, it’s also not unique in this regard.
A new study of 11,460 skilled nursing facilities from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that while a median of 77.8% of residents had received their first Covid-19 dose as of Jan. 17, a median of just 37.5% of staff members had done so.
Some of that has to do with the sheer amount of misinformation regarding the vaccine, what it’s made of and its effects. Other times, it’s a matter of senior living workers simply not wanting to go first.
For Silverado, education efforts and leading by example have led to a mixed bag of results, and vaccination rates for staff generally run between 50% to 80% at the company’s more than 20 communities.
“That’s not good enough,” Shook said.
So, starting March 1, getting a Covid-19 vaccine will be a condition of employment, barring exemptions for medical or religious reasons. And this isn’t the first time the company has made a vaccine mandatory. Silverado also made the most recent flu vaccine a condition of employment for workers, and now those vaccination rates are nearing 95%.
“We don’t have a choice,” Shook said. “It’s one tool we have that can help people stay alive.”
While setting a vaccine mandate might cause some Silverado staff to leave, Shook also believes prospective hires will be more discerning about places of employment that can guarantee high levels of vaccination.
Other senior living providers have committed to making the vaccine mandatory, but not right away. For instance, Aegis President Kris Engskov said the provider plans to make the vaccine a condition of employment, but only when more doses are available.
“When you can take a letter right from Aegis and walk into a CVS and say, ‘Hey, I need to get the vaccine,’ and it’ll be available, that is I think when we can mandate it,” Engskov told SHN.
That’s not to say Aegis has seen low rates of vaccinations among workers. In fact, Engskov said an average of about 85% of the company’s staff have received their first dose so far, with some variation from one community to another. The company’s educational efforts are a driving force behind that high vaccination rate.
“We’re working with the handful of folks that are still concerned for whatever reason,” Engskov said. “We’re dispatching an expert to go meet with that team and help them understand how the vaccine works and … really leaning in to make sure they get all the information they need.”
But while Aegis’ education efforts are paying off now, Engskov also believes having a mandate in place will help the provider stay current with vaccinations as new and potentially unvaccinated workers come aboard.
“A really important part of what we offer is protection,” Engskov said. “If we don’t have all of our team vaccinated, that feels like we’re not doing everything we can to protect [residents].”
ALG Senior is also planning to issue a vaccine mandate in the future similar to what it has already done with flu clinics in the past.
“We are currently working to address logistical concerns with vaccine availability, such as when and how new hires will be able to receive their vaccine after our scheduled clinics are completed,” an ALG spokesperson told SHN. “As vaccine availability increases in time, we will determine when and how the mandate is issued.”
Wait and see
While providers are encountering challenges in educating and motivating staff to get vaccinated, the majority of providers still have not made the vaccine mandatory, according to NIC.
But there are some who are considering it. For example, while Holiday Retirement has not required Covid-19 vaccines among workers as it’s built its own distribution network, the provider has also not ruled out doing so in the future.
Holiday’s decision hinges partly on the availability of vaccine supplies, according to Holiday’s chief people officer, Karen Sheean.
“We can’t even answer that question until I can rest assured that every one of our communities and our associates have a place to get the vaccine,” Sheean told SHN.
The company’s current vaccination rate among associates is around 45%, and that rate will likely trend closer to 50% by the time most employees have gotten their second doses.
“What we would look toward are CDC recommendations on mandating [the vaccine], and what happens within the broader senior living industry,” Sheean told SHN.
Civitas is another provider that has not mandated vaccines for workers, but is open to doing so in the future. Though it varies by community, about half of the community’s associates on average have already received their first Covid-19 vaccine dose.
“The hesitancy is more just the unknown,” Civitas COO Misty Miller told SHN. “They want to get it, they’re just not sure they want to get it right now.”
In the meantime, the company is incentivizing workers to roll up their sleeves by offering them two days of paid time off and entering them into a money raffle once they’ve completed their second doses.
Silervado’s Shook says he has so far only heard of a small number of providers that are also setting vaccine mandates. But, he believes that vaccine mandates will at some point hit critical mass and have widespread adoption within the industry.
“I think it’s important for the industry to see there’s one more operator doing this,” Shook said. “I think most will at the end of the day.”
McFarlin Group is looking beyond the U.S. for senior housing investors.
The Dallas-based fully integrated senior housing firm became a sponsor of Private Wealth Global, an investment platform focused on core-plus and value-add opportunities in the U.S. and Europe, particularly multifamily and health care.
The move gives McFarlin access to investors in South America and Europe for its latest investment fund. Last April, the firm announced a $100 million target fund to acquire senior housing communities under operational distress from Covid-19.
Affiliations
Health Dimensions Group to manage Illinois community
Health Dimensions Group was tapped to manage, provide oversight, and reposition the former Brookdale Burr Ridge assisted living facility in Burr Ridge, Illinois. The community was rebranded as Dimensions Living Burr Ridge.
Sales and operator transitions
Taylor Community acquires New Hampshire senior housing community
Taylor Community completed an acquisition of Sugar Hill Retirement Community, a senior housing community in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire with independent living apartments and cottages, and an assisted living wing, the Laconia Daily Sun reports.
Taylor plans to expand the assisted living wing, as well as provide services to those who need nursing or memory care. Bank of New Hampshire provided acquisition financing.
Brookfield acquires Virginia community for $20M
Brookfield Properties acquired Sunrise Villa Tuckahoe, an assisted living facility in Richmond, Virginia, for $20 million, Richmond BizSense reports.
Sunrise Senior Living will continue to operate the community, which also offers memory care and hospice services.
Fairstead completes $60M Florida affordable senior apartment community acquisition
New York-based affordable housing developer and investor Fairstead recently acquired Goodlette Arms Apartments, an 250-unit affordable community for seniors in Naples, Florida, for $59.5 million. Additionally, the firm will spend an additional $25 million to upgrade all apartments and common areas along with energy, sustainability and property resiliency measures across the property.
The deal will preserve affordability at Goodlette Arms Apartments for at least the next 40 years. Fairstead secured financing for the project from Berkadia Commercial Mortgage, with Regions Bank acting as the tax credit investor and the Collier County Housing Finance Authority acting as bond issuer.
SLIB completes 2 transactions
Senior Living Investment Brokerage completed the following transactions:
Managing Director Jason Punzel and Vice Presidents Vince Viverito and Brad Goodsell were the sole brokers in the $3.5 million sale of an independent living community in Medford, Oregon. The seller is a regional owner and operator specializing in higher acuity care. The buyer is a local owner and operator that will remodel and reposition the building.
Managing Directors Matthew Alley and Ryan Saul were the sole brokers in the sale of Sun Ridge of Cielo Vista, Sun Ridge of Cambria and Sun Ridge of Desert Springs, three assisted living and memory care communities in the El Paso, Texas market. The price was not disclosed. The seller is a capital provider looking to divest of non-core assets. The buyer is a local owner and operator familiar with the market. The seller closed one of the facilities while the transaction was being completed, and the buyer will re-open it with a new use.
Christian Care Communities buys Kentucky community exiting bankruptcy
Christian Care Communities is acquiring Village East, an 89-unit senior housing community in Middletown, Kentucky that is working to exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Louisville Business Journal reports.
The community includes 39 garden-style independent living homes, 31 independent living apartments and 19 assisted living units. The purchase was financed with two loans totaling $4.24 million from Central Bank & Trust Company.
Heavenrich & Company sells Houston memory care, skilled nursing community
Heavenrich & Company completed the sale of Pathways Memory Care, a 94-bed/60-unit memory care and skilled nursing community in northwest Houston. Heavenrich represented the seller, StoneGate Senior Living, and secured the buyer for the deal.
Financings
Newmark arranges acquisition financing for Massachusetts senior living community
Newmark arranged acquisition financing for The Residences at Watertown Square, a senior living community in Watertown, Massachusetts featuring 19 independent living apartments, 46 assisted living units and 25 memory care units.
Managing Director Sarah Anderson, Vice Chairmen Ryan Maconachy and Chad Lavender, Managing Director Ross Sanders and Senior Managing Director David Fasano represented the buyers, a joint venture partnership between Harrison Street Real Estate Capital and LCB Senior Living in the transaction.
Greystone provides $24M HUD loan for Indiana CCRC
Greystone provided a $23.8 million HUD-insured loan for the refinancing of Hubbard Hill Retirement Community, a newly expanded, 220-unit continuing care retirement community in Elkhart, Indiana. Vice President/Senior Loan originator Lisa Fischman originated the Section 232/223(a)(7) loan on behalf of the provider, which refinances the skilled nursing, assisted living and memory care portion of the campus. The loan carries a 30-year term with a fixed interest rate.
Berkadia arranges $32M financing package for Wisconsin community
Berkadia’s Seniors Housing and Healthcare Group secured $32.3 million in refinancing through Freddie Mac, for a seniors housing facility in Appleton, Wisconsin. Senior Director Chris Cain secured the financing on behalf of the Oregon-based owner and operator, Touchmark. The loan features five-years interest rate only and 70% loan-to-value ratio.
CIBC closes $7M acquisition financing package for 2 New York assisted living facilities
CIBC Bank USA closed a $6.75 million acquisition financing for two assisted living facilities in the greater New York region, which are part of the state’s Medicaid Assisted Living Program. The facilities were run by a private owner for many years, with past occupancy hovering around 80% and margins in the high 30% range.
Oxford Finance provides $23.5M credit facility to Prosper Life Care
Oxford Finance closed a $23.5 million credit facility and revolving line of credit to Prosper Life Care, an assisted living and memory care provider. Proceeds were used for the acquisition of two assisted living/memory care facilities located in Massachusetts totaling 214 units.
Lument provides $28M refinancing for California luxury retirement community
Lument provided a $28 million refinancing via the Fannie Mae Seniors Housing program for La Vida Del Mar, a 105-unit assisted and independent living community in Solana Beach, California operated by Senior Resource Group. Managing Director Doug Harper, co-lead of Lument’s western region seniors housing and healthcare production team, led the transaction.
The loan features a 10-year term, five years of interest only, and 30-year amortization. In addition to refinancing existing debt, the closing provided substantial cash-out proceeds.
HJ Sims provides $2.8M refinancing for StoneCreek Real Estate Partners
HJ Sims completed a $2.8 million PACE financing package on behalf of StoneCreek Real Estate Partners for The StoneCreek of Copperfield, a 108-bed senior housing community that will include 74 assisted living units, 22 memory care units and 12 independent living cottages currently under construction in the Copperfield area of Houston. The community will be operated and managed by Civitas Senior Living.
MassDevelopment arranges $6.4M bond for affordable senior housing conversion
MassDevelopment issued a $6.4 million tax-exempt bond on behalf of 41 N. Margin Senior Apartments, LLC, an affiliate of East Boston Community Development Corporation (EBCDC) and Affirmative Investments.
Proceeds will be used to receive a 99-year lease from Ausonia Home Association for a portion of its property at 41 N. Margin Street in Boston’s North End, to convert the property, which has been vacant for two years and was previously the headquarters for the Ausonia Council 1513, Knights of Columbus, into the Knights of Columbus Apartments that will feature 23 one-bedroom units of affordable senior housing to be rented to households earning no more than 60% of the area median income. The project includes renovating the building, adding two floors where the housing units will be located, and constructing a 1,600-square-foot addition that will serve as the new quarters for Ausonia Council 1513, Knights of Columbus. Eastern Bank purchased the bond.
Ratings Outlooks
Fitch downgrades ratings on 3 CCRCs, assigns 1 more
Fitch Ratings announced ratings on the following CCRCs:
Fitch downgraded the credit rating on $5.9 million in revenue refunding bonds issued by the California Statewide Communities Development Authority to Aldersly, a CCRC in San Rafael, California, to “BBB-” from “BBB.” The rating outlook is negative. Key drivers include continued deterioration of census and soft operational performance.
Approximately $110 million in Series 2016 and 2017A revenue improvement bonds issued by Sarasota County Health Facilities Authority, as well as 2019 revenue improvement bonds issued by the City of Venice, Florida on behalf of Village on the Isle to “BB+” from “BBB-.” The rating outlook was revised from stable to negative. Key rating drivers include continued weak operations and liquidity, and continued occupancy concerns in the campus’ assisted living and skilled nursing cohorts.
Series 2014 and 2016 retirement facility revenue bonds issued by Mesquite Health Facilities Development Corporation (Texas) on behalf of Christian Care Centers were downgraded to a “D” rating from “B+.” The bonds were removed from ratings watch negative. Key drivers include a failure to pay the principal payments on its bonds that were due on Feb. 15. Due to ongoing financial difficulties that have been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, CCC failed to make its payments toward debt service to the trustee since November 2020. The provider made the $1.3 million interest payment due on Feb. 15 from its own funds. About $4.3 million remains in the debt service reserve accounts.
Fitch assigned a ‘BBB-‘ issuer default rating to Brethren Hillcrest Homes, a CCRC in La Verne, California. The rating outlook is stable.
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Construction: Planned
Texas Footprint Expands for Anthology
Anthology Senior Living announced plans to develop two new communities in Austin and Dallas, Texas totaling 251 residences, bringing Anthology’s total to six communities in Texas.
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American Healthcare REIT Promotes New Executive
Irvine, California-based American Healthcare REIT announced the promotion of Gabriel M. Willhite as chief operating officer (COO), the company said in a news release.
Willhite joined the company six years ago when it was founded and worked his way up the ranks since 2016 from senior vice president, assistant general counsel before being named executive vice president, general counsel in 2020, and subsequently being appointed as executive vice president, general counsel of the newly formed American Healthcare REIT in 2021.
He also played a role in assisting the transaction between Trilogy Investors that led to the formation of American Healthcare REIT.
Prior to joining the company, he served as legal counsel for Sabal Financial Group LP overseeing acquisitions, financings, joint ventures, dispositions and strategic workout transactions.
Willhite replaces Mathieu B. Streiff as COO and Streiff will continue as an executive vice president for the remainder of the year before stepping down from his position.
American Healthcare REIT has a portfolio of healthcare real estate assets totaling approximately 19 million square feet, with a gross investment value of approximately $4.2 billion. As of March 31, 2022, its international portfolio includes 313 buildings comprising medical office buildings, senior living communities, skilled nursing facilities, and other real estate-related investments across 36 states and the United Kingdom.
Civitas Senior Living Community Welcomes Executive Director
The Harvest of Roanoke in Roanoke, Texas, an assisted living and memory care community, recently welcomed its new executive director Ruth Cherop.
She was previously executive director at another Civitas community in Weatherford before joining the Roanoke team. Cherop first joined the senior living industry in 2007 and has been part of Civitas since 2019.
The Springs Adds Community Executive Director
The Springs at Carman Oaks in Lake Oswego, Oregon announced that Donna Fuller-Archer has been appointed as executive director of the community.
She brings over a decade of senior living experience to her new role, most recently serving as an administrator of Marjorie House Memory Care, a dementia care community in McMinnville, Oregon. Fuller-Archer’s experience includes previously leading The Springs Living community in The Dalles, Oregon where she ran The Springs at Mill Creek for over five years as executive director.
The Springs Living owns and operates 18 senior living communities in Oregon and Montana, offering independent living, assisted living, and memory care services. Two additional communities are under development in Happy Valley, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington.
Dominion Senior Living Hires New Director
Kentucky-based Dominion Senior Living of Frankfort recently hired Karole Hamilton as executive director.
Hamilton comes to the community with over 25 years of multi-state experience in health care as an executive director and operations consultant for senior living communities of all sizes and asset classes.
The community offers personal care, memory care and respite services for seniors in the Frankfort, Kentucky area.
Movers & Shakers is brought to you by the Senior Housing News Job Board. Browse and apply to management and executive senior living jobs and positions from leading professional firms serving the industry. Employers can post single jobs, purchase job packages or our premium subscription that includes unlimited job posts and editorial coverage for one year. Visit SHN Jobs today.
iN2L + LifeLoop names new CEO
iN2L+LifeLoop has named Navin Gupta as chief executive officer to focus on growth of the recently-expanded organization moving forward.
Gupta replaces outgoing CEO Lisa Taylor, who will remain involved with the organization as a strategic advisor, a press release regarding the announcements stated.
With more than two decades in health care, security and telecommunication, Gupta will focus on market acceleration, product innovation and deepening customer relationships while expanding the organization’s partner communities.
He previously worked in the home health and hospice division of MatrixCare and prior to that, spent decades leading product improvements in patient monitoring and communication for Philips Healthcare, United Technologies, and Siemens.
iN2L recently acquired LifeLoop in April to create a more integrated senior living tech platform.
Kisco Senior Living adds senior culinary director
Kisco Senior Living recently hired Ernest Fong as senior director of culinary services, according to an announcement made on LinkedIn by Kisco National Director of Culinary Services Randall Lonoza.
Fong joins Kisco after three-and-a-half years at Northstar Senior Living where he served as director of dining services.
Presbyterian Senior Living adds medical director
Presbyterian Senior Living announced Dr. Paul Katz as corporate medical director to fill the post previously held by Dr. Russel Breish, who is retiring from the role.
Katz brings more than 15 years experience in geriatrics, post-acute and longterm care medicine. Katz previously served as director of medical services for Westminster Oaks and as the chair of department of geriatrics within the Florida State University College of Medicine.
Senior advisor named for Bridges by EPOCH at Sudbury
Bridges by EPOCH at Sudbury, a memory care community in Sudbury, Massachusetts, named Mandy Emond as senior advisor.
With over a decade of senior living experience, Emond will provide resources and education to families during the caregiving journey and assist others with their search for memory care.
Prior to her current role, she worked as director of sales and marketing, as a traditional care director, a home care supervisor and home care case manager.
Eden Alternative board welcomes latest member
Delight by Design CEO Sarah Thomas has joined the board of the Eden Alternative with more than 20 years of senior living experience.
Her career has spanned high-tech robotics, change management, post-acute care. She joins the board at a time of growth for Eden that comes after nearly two years of modernization of its services and tools to better meet senior living community needs.
Integral Senior Living community adds to leadership team
The Capstone at Centerra, an Integral Senior Living community in the Loveland, Colorado area, recently announced Deedra Moats as executive director.
Moats brings over 25 years of health care and human services experience to the community, and previously served as executive director of The Peaks at Old Laramie Trail in Lafayette, Colorado.
The Capstone at Centerra is set to open this fall.
Foundry Commercial adds vice president as senior living exposure grows
Foundry Commercial recently hired Zach Strunk as vice president of operations for seniors housing.
Foundry Commercial now has a senior living portfolio of nearly 50 communities across eight states. Strunk brings more than a decade of experience leading operations within both skilled nursling, assisted living and memory care communities.
He joins Foundry from Balfour Senior Living where he worked for five years having most recently served as senior director of operations.
In June, the company acquired the Spring Arbor Senior Living collection of 24 AL and memory care communities in Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia.
Civitas Senior Living community welcomes new chef
Civitas Senior Living’s The Gallery at Port Orange, announced the arrival of a new chef, Daniel Kaine, who started on Aug. 1 for the company.
Kaine has spend more than 23 years of culinary experience, having previously worked as an executive chef for the last decade.
The community, located in Port Orange, Florida, offers various levels of care including IL, AL and memory care units.
Lifespark makes multiple additions to advisory group
Lifespark announced the addition of four advisory group members to bring added experience in value-based contracting to help the company expand into new markets by year-end.
Joining Lifespark’s advisory group is:
Dr. Sunil Sajan Budhrani – health care executive and physician tied to CVS/Aetna Inova Health System
Robert Kramer – founder of the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care
Paul Mastrapa – former executive of Help at Home LLC, Option Care and Walgreens Infusion Services
Movers & Shakers is brought to you by the Senior Housing News Job Board. Browse and apply to management and executive senior living jobs and positions from leading professional firms serving the industry. Employers can post single jobs, purchase job packages or our premium subscription that includes unlimited job posts and editorial coverage for one year. Visit SHN Jobs today.
Civitas Senior Living adds marketing leader
Texas-based Civitas Senior Living named Taylor Smith regional director of sales and marketing and will serve three area within the company’s portfolio in texas.
Taylor has had various roles in senior living, including independent living, assisted living, and memory care communities as business office manager, sales manager, Executive Director, and Regional Director of Sales and Marketing
Ingleside welcomes new director
Nonprofit operator Ingleside recently announced the hiring of Kenya Bryant as executive director for Ingleside at King Farm, a life plan community in Maryland.
Bryant has spent a decade in senior living working for The View Alexandria by Goodwin Living prior to joining Ingleside.
Vision Centre Board of Trustees names CEO
Dr. Douglas Olson has been appointed president and chief executive officer of the Vision Centre, an organization dedicated to building ties between higher education institutions and senior living.
Olson has been in a faculty leadership role at the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire for the last 22 years and served as the Director of the Center for Health Administration and Aging Services Excellence.
The organization’s goals include having 25 strong senior living academic programs and 1000 paid field experiences with great partnerships in place by the year 2025.
Monarch Communities director fitting well into new role
Naperville, Illinois resident Margaret Scanion-Dalke has been the life enrichment manager at Monarch Landing in Naperville for nearly a year, having come to the community with several years of experience in the industry.
Previously she served as managing programming director for another northern Illinois area retirement community.
“I can plan anything that the residents want. Every day is different. It’s never the same from day to day. The residents have a real say here. If they’re interested in something, they can tell me their idea and then I can try to make it work,” Scanion-Dalke said in a news release regarding her role.
Taylor has had various roles in senior living, including independent living, assisted living, and memory care communities as business office manager, sales manager, executive director, and regional director of sales and marketing.
Civitas Senior Living
