Industry Voices

By Jason Clouet, Bayview PACE For seniors housing developers and project sponsors, the timing of the growing adoption of commercial property assessed clean energy (C-PACE) financing couldn’t be better. While demographics show demand for housing is rising, many new seniors housing projects are stalled as traditional financing sources are drying up, or rising interest rates have squeezed margins, or worried partners have increased equity/debt demands. C-PACE financing is saving new construction projects across the country that were halted or facing delays. It is also providing a welcome restructuring of the …

0 FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmail

By Jennifer Apy, Partner, Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Outsiders The pandemic of 2020 hit hardest among the most vulnerable. It was a tragic season of devastation, fear and uncertainty among the elderly population, and it presented an unforeseen crisis for the senior living facilities that supported them.  Three years later, in 2023, that industry is just barely recovering from the 30 percent decline in population. To further the problem, rising inflation is leading seniors to age in their homes — pushing the average move-in age to 87 years. Senior living facilities were …

0 FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmail

Developers rethink strategies to manage larger economic headwinds. By Dan King With today’s soaring construction costs, rising inflation and endless supply chain disruptions, developers are more mindful than ever before about project design, efficiency and affordability in senior living. In our current economic landscape, developers are rethinking everything from room sizes to how they use shared spaces to solve some of the biggest problems currently facing construction and design. To keep senior living projects moving forward through a down economic cycle, we as architects and designers are constantly working with …

0 FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmail

Young gun works his way up from dining room server to executive, winning an Argentum Senior Living Community Leadership Award along the way. By Jeff Shaw Edwin Funes started young, but you could’ve guessed that by the fact that he’s a 35-year-old taking on a regional director role for The Arbor Company. Arbor operates 45 communities in the Southeast, Northeast, Midwest and Texas. In his new role, Funes oversees seven of the Mid-Atlantic properties as regional vice president of resident care.  He earned the promotion soon after winning the 2023 …

0 FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmail

By Jason Erdahl, principal, director of senior communities, Ankrom Moisan  Nursing and residential care facilities lost more than 145,000 workers over the last two years, according to the National Center for Assisted Living. Between staff shortages and increased budgetary concerns for staffing in the senior care market, a solution is necessary to support the growing aging population.  While staff members are still very much needed to assist those residing in these facilities, architects and designers can answer the call for help by creating spaces that aid residents in doing daily tasks on …

0 FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmail

By Dan Lindberg, founder and principal, Applied Economic Insight Labor shortages took center stage for business leaders and economists across many sectors of the economy during the Great Resignation toward the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Such shortages, however, are nothing new for seniors housing and care providers. While required staffing ratios and regulations add to this, at heart seniors housing is an operationally intensive business. It takes people to serve people.  That said, labor is a two-sided coin. On the first side, we have staffing levels measured in terms …

0 FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmail

By Kimberly Hellekson and Ken Linehan, FK Architecture The clock on advancing the cause of assisted senior living is ticking — quite loudly.  By 2050, an astonishing one-fifth of the American population will be over 65 years of age, according to Statista. That percentage translates into some 30 million people who will require some form of long-term senior care, up from less than 10 million today. Currently, there are not enough seniors housing units to accommodate this need. We are living longer, and as the birthrate in the United States continues …

0 FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmail

By James Kraft, Kraft Development The last time I appeared in this section in 2016, I complained in my article Developers Wasting Good Real Estate With Bad Design that same-old buildings were being replaced by same-old buildings with few new communities which I would be interested in moving into as I get closer to retirement. Now, at 66 years old, I will voice those same complaints.  Considering that I have personally been responsible for the “dirt” sitting under more than 12,000 mostly seniors housing units, I hope my voice is finally listened …

0 FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmail

Well-thought-out art can improve resident health and increase property reputation. By Rochelle Mills As the president and CEO of Innovative Housing Opportunities (IHO), a developer of affordable and permanent-subsidized housing, I’m passionate about the beneficial role that art can play in uplifting the communities in multifamily housing developments, especially seniors housing.  When I joined IHO in 2006, then-board president Mary Watson-Bruce, a Ph.D. in geriatrics, emphasized to me the importance of the arts on well-being, mental health, sense of calm, blood pressure and more for the senior population. At the …

0 FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmail

From baking to disaster relief, a diverse background and passion for senior care informs this operator’s decisions. By Jeff Shaw To say that Caryl Ridgeway has a diverse background, or that she got an early start on her career, would be an understatement. Currently the CEO of Milestone Retirement Communities, a Vancouver, Washington-based operator founded in 2008, Ridgeway became a certified nursing assistant (CNA) at age 15. She was inspired by her visits to the local nursing home in Oklahoma City with her grandmother. That same grandmother also inspired Ridgeway’s …

0 FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmail