Every year about 16,000 new senior housing properties are developed. However, demand for senior housing services is so high that by some estimates, developers would need to build more than 40,000 properties each year in order to avoid a supply shortage in the future. Fortunately for those seniors that will transition to senior housing communities in the future, providers and developers all across the country are working hard to build more properties to meet the surge in demand.
Construction Ramps Up in Texas
Demand for senior housing services is expected to grow especially quickly in Texas over the coming years, and providers like Baptist Community Services are moving fast to take advantage of this. Baptist Community Services (BCS) recently began construction on a $5.6 million assisted living center in Amarillo, Texas. The facility will be called Park Central Memory Care and it will have room for about 50 residents. It will also focus on seniors with dementia and memory care needs. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, over five million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s today, and this figure could reach 16 million by 2050. In recognition of this, BCS decided that Park Central should focus on seniors with dementia, and it is doing everything that it can to ensure that its future memory care residents will enjoy their stay there.
For example, Park Central’s layout will feature four interconnected neighborhoods with their own resident rooms, kitchens, dining areas, and living rooms. The community will also offer attractive amenities such as a salon, therapeutic quiet rooms, and a courtyard. To reduce the risk of elopement by residents, Park Central will be surrounded by security walls, and there will be interior monitoring systems to alert staff if a resident is wandering around in the middle of the night. Lastly, the staff at Park Central will be trained in The Best Friends Approach to Alzheimer’s Care, a program that emphasizes relationships, quality of life, and maintaining one’s dignity. Furthermore, each staff member will be assigned only eight residents so that they will have ample time to spend with each one. Park Central is slated to open in mid-2015, and BCS expects it to fill up quickly when it does.
A Senior Housing Provider Eyes Massachusetts for its New Facility
After a one year stall over permitting issues, Northbridge Companies, a Burlington, Massachusetts based company that operates assisted living communities throughout New England, is moving forward with plans to build a 55,000 square-foot, 70-unit assisted living and memory care community in Mashpee, Massachusetts. Northbridge originally submitted a permit to build this facility last year, but then withdrew it a few weeks later over concerns that the land they wanted to build on was an endangered species habitat. However, since then, the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program cleared the area for development, and Northbridge decided to move forward with building a community there. Once completed, the community will contain 58 assisted living apartments and 12 memory care apartments. It will also contain a pub, library, café, theater, spa, and a beauty shop for its residents to enjoy. Northbridge began the permitting process for the property and, if everything goes well, they expect to break ground on the building next summer and to open roughly a year later in the summer of 2016.
These are just two examples of senior housing construction that are taking place all across the country as providers attempt to meet the growing demand for senior housing services, and to take advantage of today’s low interest rates. Before interest rates rise, as they are expected to next year, senior housing providers and investors who are seeking capital for growth or other purposes should contact Cambridge Realty Capital to learn more about the different financing options that it offers for a wide variety of senior housing transactions.
