Shades of gray: developing a seniors-housing niche means splitting a few hairs

Residential Architect, Jan-Feb, 2004 by Cheryl Weber

In Naples, Fla., WCI Communities recently completed a beachfront tower that targets well-heeled buyers in their 50s. Its penthouse is priced at $12 million. In Atlanta, James, Harwick Partners is designing a subsidized apartment building for low-income retirees that includes a surround-sound theater and a fitness center. And in Sarasota, Fla., the master-planned Lakewood Ranch community will include an on-site assisted-living facility.

Once upon a time, so-called seniors housing was designed for the 70ish set. In addition to institutional nursing homes, it usually consisted of apartments or a string of cottages with access to medical care. But architects doing retirement housing today are dealing with a more discerning and complex group of buyers, people whose ages can span 40 years and whose income levels, lifestyles, and health needs range just as widely. The types of businesses venturing into this market have become more diverse, too. Private developers, nonprofit groups, large corporations, hospitals, insurance companies, and universities all are getting in on the act. As the market heats up, architects who can identify the hot buttons of baby-boomer housing and provide thoughtful, cost-conscious design have a ready-made niche that will take them far into the future.

Retirement housing has many parts. At one end of the spectrum are active-adult communities that look, to consumers, like any other residential development. About 9.5 million U.S. households are living in age-targeted or age-restricted communities, estimates the NAHB Seniors Housing Council. At the other end of the line are continuing-care facilities--more than 17,000 in the U.S., according to Thomas Fairchild, director of special projects on aging at the University of North Texas, Fort Worth. Between these extremes are independent-living projects, which offer hospitality services, and assisted-living facilities, which are hard to define because they have no single blueprint and regulations governing them vary from state to state. The Assisted Living Federation of America defines an assisted-living facility as a core of housing with personalized services for those who need help with daily living, including nursing care for Alzheimer's patients. ALFA puts the number of such residences at 20,000. But it's the active-adult segment that's growing the fastest, because boomers are retiring earlier.

retirees at play

"The number of active-adult communities is growing rapidly, largely because of the recognition that baby boomers are marching toward golden ponds," Fairchild says. Indeed, most production architects have been led into age-restricted housing by their longtime clients. As baby boomers entered their 50s and 60s over the past decade, developers moved with the market. Vacation destinations such as Hilton Head, S.C., evolved into retirement havens. Now, though, builders are seeing growth opportunities outside of Sun Belt states, in metro areas like Cleveland and Chicago.

Many retirees have no intention of leaving the familiarity of their hometown.

Like any other housing market, the active-adult segment of the seniors population breaks down into niches from which architects can pick and choose. "The fragmentation of the market is the thing we're all paying attention to," says Mike Kephart, Kephart Architects, Denver. "What can they afford? What cultural background do they come from? What kind of lifestyle interests do they have--city life, rural life? The wise builders are selecting the ones they can deal with as a service, and going at it that way."

Architects who wish to pursue this market must be able to convince builders that they have a good idea who the buyers are--their interests, their income level, and their psychographics. "The biggest issue is that the active adult buyer is a discriminating one, no matter if they are blue-collar or a corporate executive," says Gary Snider, AIA, of Blood-good Sharp Buster's Boston office. "You have to under stand the price point in your market and design to that price point. On top of that, you have to design something that's better, in terms of community planning, lifestyle, and features, than what they have now. You must be able to show them how they will live in that house now, and 10 years from now, and 10 years after that. The more specifically you define the values of your buyer profile, the more successful you will be."

Active-adult communities typically include some of the elements of a town center, such as a post office, a library, a large sports facility, and meeting spaces, so the land-planning element is as important as the design of the homes. Legibility issues are critical--how one navigates the site, the width and configuration of streets, and whether to use intersections or roundabouts. Developer Tom Zanic, president of New Urban West, Santa Monica, Calif., says he looks for architects who are as well-versed in the big-picture issues of community layout, technology, and security as they are in the things that make houses easier to live in, such as flexible spaces and universal design.