Over time, things wear out, expectations change, and attitudes adjust. The ability to adapt to change is the key to long-term Life Plan Community vitality. Few community sponsors have the luxury to start over, but all have the ability to reinvent.
Reinvention provides an exciting opportunity for good stewardship, while breathing new life into an existing community. As consumer demographics, product preferences and service priorities continue to evolve, senior living communities must likewise reinvent themselves to remain relevant.
Whether for financial reasons, land constraints or stewardship of resources, reinvention is a viable consideration. If the existing infrastructure is a good fit for your program goals, substantial value can be gained from building re-use.
Renovation versus Reinvention
Renovation is about updating finishes to keep spaces feeling fresh and inviting. Reinvention goes beyond appearance to change how spaces are used.
“Reinvention isn’t just cosmetic, it’s changing the essence of a building—introducing new wellness amenities, changing how dining operates, or providing smaller scale households with private rooms that function differently than what you had before.”
Reinvention responds to the reality that many senior living communities don’t have room to expand or readily available capital for new construction. It acknowledges the inherent value of existing resources. It provides creative solutions to meld aging infrastructure and current best practices. It’s extreme makeover meets home improvement.
Reason to Reinvent #1 – Address Aging Infrastructure
Perhaps the most obvious reason to reinvent is the age of your buildings. Sometimes it’s as simple as a tired and worn appearance, but more often spaces need to be reconfigured to meet new program goals or operational needs.
At Patriots Colony in Williamsburg, Virginia, formal dining was downsized, with a corresponding expansion of the pub and introductions of a new bistro venue with display cooking and a patio dining option.
Aging infrastructure can also mean that your building is no longer operating at peak performance. Not investing in regular updates could cost you more money in the long run. According to the building consultants at ZumBrennan, deferred maintenance that becomes a breakdown event can cost a community exponentially more.
Most senior living communities have older and smaller housing stock which poses marketing challenges when trying to meet current consumer demands. Design strategies for working “inside the box” to renovate or combine existing units can provide creative and affordable solutions that offer lasting market appeal.
Some senior living communities have embraced the “not-so-big” movement as a marketing differentiator that allows them to maintain a lower price point option. Consider strategies to rework smaller apartments so they “live bigger” than the actual square footage. This is typically accomplished by opening up the floor plan to create a larger sense of scale and openness while paving the way for updated finishes, fixtures, and lighting.
Reason to Reinvent #2 – Attract New Residents
Marketing begins at your front door. The building façade is sometimes overlooked in favor of interior updates, but if the first impression does not reflect your community’s desired brand identity, prospective residents may never come inside.
Reinvention allows providers to introduce lifelong learning opportunities or diverse cultural programming to create the types of senior living experiences consumers are seeking. We have seen that the Baby Boomers want options and don’t want to move into “a place for old people.”
“Reinvention is about building upon the unique qualities that make the experience of living at your community special.”
Success Story
After affiliating with Cokesbury Village, Acts Retirement-Life Communities needed to update the community to better reflect its brand and meet senior living market expectations. This began with reinventing the community center and apartments. The reinvented facade, along with a new porte cochere and expanded drop-off area provide a welcoming gesture.
Reason to Reinvent #3 – Maintaining Mission and Values
Life Plan Communities face the conundrum of upholding longstanding missions to provide lifelong care regardless of residents’ means or abilities while facing escalating financial pressures on skilled nursing operations.
Community sponsors report that skilled nursing care is becoming a much shorter term, but more costly “very end of life” stay for most. This is due, at least in part, to increasing access to in-home care. Even if committed to maintaining the full care continuum, Life Plan Communities must rightsize their senior care offerings to close the gap between operational costs and insufficient reimbursements.
Converting Skilled Nursing to Memory Care
Edenwald in Towson, Maryland took the opportunity to transform a decommissioned nursing neighborhood into a memory care household with specialized programming. Renovations opened up the core of the plan to provide inviting and varied common areas that support Edenwald’s whole-person approach to memory care. The open dining and living room spaces are complemented by a library/resource center, game room, fitness area, music therapy room and arts and crafts studio.
Solving the current care conundrum is going to look different for each provider and will likely take the form of varied models and new approaches. As healthcare becomes increasingly costly to operate, a hard look at every area and every service line is warranted so that subsidized service areas truly align with mission objectives.
Success Story
Master planning for Village On the Isle in Venice, Florida resulted in multi-phased updates, with some buildings to be replaced and others reinvented over the course of several years. This began with the conversion of the 80,000 square foot Mark Manor assisted living residence into The Lofts.
Community leaders made the fiscally-responsible decision to work with the “good bones” and renovate each floor to create person-centered households. The overall census dropped from 90 beds to 64 suites, 16 for residents with dementia and 48 for assisted living. Due to the eight-foot floor-to-ceiling height, every bulkhead is functional to maintain as much height as possible while introducing outside air through a new mechanical system.
Is it Time for Reinvention at Your Senior Living Community?
Especially when times are challenging, it can be easy to defer needed updates and their inherent challenges for another time. But not doing anything, puts your community further behind the curve. It often gets more expensive because you haven’t been updating what you have.
It can also be simpler to tear down an aging building and build new, but effective reinvention can provide spaces that look, act and feel like new. Reinvention explores the potential for cost savings and creative solutions for sponsors who, either by choice or circumstance, need to maintain their existing infrastructure.
Reinvention respects your community’s heritage by maintaining unique features or architectural detailing that often has sentimental value.
“When reinvention is done well, effectively reusing an existing building can build goodwill. Saving an older building goes a long way not only for the leadership team, but also with staff and residents that we did the right thing.”
If you are unable to remember the last update, it probably is time for reinvention!
About the Authors
With more than 25 years of experience, much of Dan’s career has involved managing projects for senior living communities. These experiences have included a wide range of building types including specific focus on health care repositioning and strategic growth. Dan is particularly skilled at working with state officials to navigate the licensing process that is unique to each state, with the ultimate goal of providing the best possible environment for the end user. Dan is a NCARB Registered Architect, a LEED Accredited Professional and a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). In addition, Dan has served as board...
Learn More About Daniel
Eric serves as partner-in-charge, guiding teams of administrators, facility managers, engineers, consultants, and general contractors, through the design and construction process. His project leadership for life plan community projects, spans a 25 plus year career focusing on all aspects of senior housing and care settings. He is an NCARB Registered Architect, a LEED Accredited Professional and a member of the American Institute of Architects. Eric leads the firm’s Post Occupancy Evaluation team and the employee mentoring program and also provides in-house seminars for the project architects. In his spare time, Eric enjoys day trips with his family. They’ve hit many...
Learn More About Eric
Million Dollar Question
