Based in Hamilton, New Jersey, Spiezle Architectural Group is a firm that provides architecture, interior design, construction, furniture procurement, engineering and landscape design services. Seniors Housing Business spoke with Steve Leone, a principal at the firm, to hear about Spiezle, its approach to acute healthcare and senior living projects and Cathedral Village, a project in Philadelphia. SHB: When was Spiezle founded, and how many employees does the firm have? Leone: Spiezle was founded in 1954. With 120 employee-owners, the firm operates out of five offices and offers design services nationwide and …
Features
How Ambient Sensing Technology Transforms Resident Wellness
New tools are helping seniors housing providers detect fall risks early, giving them an edge in prevention while preserving residents’ privacy and dignity. This technology is part of a new frontier in healthcare: tracking and identifying changes in behavior earlier and earlier while providing tailored alerts and wellness insights to improve outcomes. “We are always looking for opportunities to reduce falls and maintain, or improve, the overall health and wellbeing of our residents,” says Mark Mountel, director of technology at Life Enriching Communities (LEC). The not-for-profit owner and operator of …
SAN DIEGO — Seniors housing’s standing in the investment world is on the rise, says Lisa McCracken, head of research and analytics at the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care based in Annapolis, Maryland. During a webinar hosted by the Urban Land Institute in October 2024 highlighting its real estate economic forecast, the organization polled over 2,000 registrants on the following question: “Which sector do you feel will provide the best risk-adjusted returns across the next three years?” Data centers captured the largest share of responses (38 percent), …
LOS ANGELES — The challenges in the commercial real estate lending market that emerged in the fourth quarter of 2022 — highlighted by the sharp rise in interest rates — still linger and have forced seniors housing developers, investors and operators to adjust their strategies. Editor’s note: InterFace Conference Group, a division of France Media Inc., produces networking and educational conferences for commercial real estate executives. To sign up for email announcements about specific events, visit www.interfaceconferencegroup.com/subscribe. “We’re in an era now where there’s a lot of turmoil, I’d say, …
An increase in stability and debt availability will lead to an uptick in transactions but not all buyers — or properties — are created equal. To say that the seniors housing sector has encountered strong headwinds over the past few years would be an understatement. The property sector was uniquely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. It scarcely had a chance to recover and enjoy rebounding occupancy before being faced with the reality of heightened interest rates. Amid all the challenges, industry professionals adopted a motivational yet pragmatic mantra and strategy: …
Demographic shifts prompt developers to focus on fast-growing cities in the South and West to attract new residents. Which markets are hot? While developers scour the Mountain West and Mid-Atlantic states for promising sites, one senior living investor likes the somewhat unlikely spot of Rockford, Illinois. LTC Properties (NYSE: LTC), a real estate investment trust, has provided a construction loan for The Courtyard at Loves Park, a 116-unit senior living project under development in Loves Park, Illinois, a suburb of Rockford. The mid-size, Midwestern city with a rocky history after the …
The consensus among lenders in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s LEAN healthcare mortgage insurance program is that loan volume in fiscal year (FY) 2025 will surpass the prior year’s total of $3.1 billion due to a combination of factors. The lending program, which stems from Section 232 of the National Housing Act, plays a vital role in helping finance nursing homes and assisted living facilities. HUD LEAN is a streamlined program for processing Section 232 applications. “Lending volume should only rise in 2025,” predicts Sampada D’silva, chief …
Many nonprofit organizations will likely be forced to sell seniors housing properties and skilled nursing facilities over the next year after succumbing to years of high costs and slowly recovering occupancies. Several have already come to the closing table. Smaller nonprofits — organizations that own one or two properties — have been especially hurt by the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic that struck the seniors housing and care industry in early 2020. Numerous federal, state and local pandemic programs that provided support expired over the last two years. Meanwhile, …
PHILADELPHIA — Andrew Carle believes that university retirement communities (URCs) represent a potential game-changing opportunity not only for the seniors housing industry but also for universities and retirees, if executed properly. Yet, URCs are also extraordinarily complicated to operate, cautions the founder of UniversityRetirementCommunities.com, the first directory and information resource of its kind, which lists more than 85 such communities nationwide. “It doesn’t get more difficult than trying to merge big, large, bureaucratic state universities that move very slowly and who live in a bubble of 20-year-olds with the senior living …
The nonprofit continues to leverage acquisitions, affiliations, technology and philanthropy to expand its seniors housing and aging services footprint across the country. When it comes to business names, Transforming Age aptly and succinctly describes the purpose of the nonprofit organization based in Bellevue, Washington. Sure, the nonprofit operates 75 market rate and affordable seniors housing properties as well as 13 active adult assets in a handful of Northwest, West and Midwest markets. But housing is merely one part of its broader mission to improve the lives of older adults through …