Retirement Communities That Reach For The Sky

Continuing-care retirement communities, "a type of senior housing that offers residents access to independent living, assisted living and skilled nursing care in the same complex", have typically been developed in suburban or rural settings.

"But now a growing number of such retirement communities, many developed by nonprofit organizations, are coming to cities. About 15 continuing-care communities are planned or under construction in city neighborhoods, said Kathryn L. Brod, a former director of continuing care for the association and now a senior vice president for Zeigler, a senior living finance company. "There is increased interest in doing C.C.R.C.'s in urban environments," she said."

"Featuring hotel-style amenities and services, the new metropolitan retirement communities have expensive entry fee and monthly maintenance charges and are a response to an expanding market of affluent and active retirees. The communities also represent another stage in the nation's urban renaissance, which has attracted an influx of empty nesters and young professionals over the last decade."

""Today's buyer doesn't want to be put out to pasture, where they never see anybody other than someone else who is put out to pasture," said Paul Riepma, a senior vice president of marketing for one new such community, the Mirabella, in Seattle, WA. "They want to be connected to the energy of the city.""

"The developments can be challenging to build. Unlike suburban campuses, high-rise communities are "vertically integrated," said Paul Donaldson, an architect who worked on the Clare. "You have to integrate the institutional standards into a residential model in an understated manner." Design requirements include shortening travel distances to elevators and facilitating access to services on different floors."

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