The art of retirement - New Mexico's retirement homes - Industry Overview

New Mexico Business Journal, August, 1992 by Arlene Cinelli Odenwald

Mignonne Kirby-Smith made up her mind when she found a stranger walking into her Florida home in the middle of the day.

"I moved because I was looking for security," she says.

She got more than that.

"When my Florida friends visit me here, they're very impressed," says Kirby-Smith, now a satisfied resident of The Montebello on Academy in Albuquerque.

"They say it looks more like a luxury hotel instead of a retirement home ..."

The Montebello -- and other retirement homes and villages throughout the Land of Enchantment -- is typical of a growth industry where there is literally no limits to the horizon.

Half of the nation's retirees or those about to retire head to New Mexico or one of the six other traditionally warm weather dominions, including California, Arizona, Texas, North and South Carolina and Florida.

The newcomers move to seek a life of true independence; to get away from the crime and foul weather; find a more affordable place to live; seek an area compatible with hobbies and recreational interests; or just to start a new life.

And the term, retirement community, can mean a lot of things -- a trailer park or hotel; cottages to villages to apartments; a retirement city. It may be luxurious or low income.

About 500,000 older Americans, for instance, live in more than 50 retirement communities, most in the Sun Belt.

The concept of retirement communities -- or age segregated enclaves -- has often been traced back to the 1960s when, among other initiators, Del Webb Development Company started Sun City 20 miles outside of Phoenix.

What happened with Del Webb overlapped into mobile home parks for the elderly; a proliferation of retirement hotels and luxury condominiums coupled with life care facilities.

The Montebello, like a lot of other retirement residences, is a rental retirement community offering fully licensed care on site; monthly rental not only takes care of room and board, but housekeeping, maintenance and security.

And there are buy-in retirement communities, such as La Vida Llena and Manzano del Sol in Albuquerque, offering a different financial approach to retirement called life care or total care facilities.

In life care facilities, a retiree can move from independence to dependence and all the needs are taken care of, says Ginger Grossettete, social services manager with the Office of Senior Affairs in Albuquerque.

These types of facilities usually offer a small house or a private apartment, maid service and nursing care when and if needed.

Total care facilities provide at least the minimum, such as room, meals and medical care in a variety of plans. La Vida Llena, for instance, also features individual casitas for senior citizens.

Camlu Retirement Apartments in Albuquerque meets food and housing needs of senior citizens; the Vineyard Retirement Community in Albuquerque's North Valley offers manufactured homes for the elderly; Encino House, an 11-story apartment complex, is for low income elderly.

Between 1960 and 1970, those reaching retirement age in New Mexico zoomed 40 percent; that increased another 15 percent in the first half of the '80s.

Along the Rio Grande in Southern New Mexico is a phenomenal growth of retiree residents, not just in Albuquerque, but Roswell, Deming and Las Cruces.

The over 65 group in those cities is triple the national average.

Some call them retirement strips, running along the Rio Grande Valley beginning at Taos and running south through Santa Fe, Albuquerque; and then there's Truth or Consequences.

Another strip covers Clovis, Roswell, Artesia, Hobbs, Carlsbad and Deming.

Santa Fe, with its historic legacy and cultural facilities, has Vista de Santa Fe and Ponce de Leon, excellent examples of rental or lease retirement facilities.

Two other retirement residences in Santa Fe are El Castillo alongside the Santa Fe River and Plaza del Monte, featuring independent cottages and living quarters.

At Pendaries Resort north of Las Vegas in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, retirees enjoy a high-mountain lifestyle.

Pendaries, which also has 135 privately-owned homes, many located around the golf course, has experienced most of its growth in the last 10 years, says Leah Lovell, marketing director.

Truth or Consequences and Socorro also have retirement facilities, particularly Truth or Consequences which can almost be considered a retirement community unto itself since one third of its residents are retirees.

Along Elephant Butte Lake, Falls Properties Inc., has 1,000 privately owned residences. Oasis at Elephant Butte, incidentally, is established well enough to have its own voter precinct, says sales manager Con Fleissner.

Falls Properties, which owns about 5,000 acres between Elephant Butte and Truth or Consequences, also has mobile home parks and privately owned apartments for retirees.

Alamogordo, Ruidoso and Cloudcroft have taken the wooing of retirees another step beyond, sponsored what they call a "Sunbird Treasure Fest" in September and October.

Roswell meanwhile is vigorously courting retirees to spend their best years there -- and it's working. About 20 percent of Roswell's population is retirees.