Changing Aging

Look for these 10 senior housing development trends from 2007 to pick up even more steam in 2008 as the age wave gains force:

1.  Congregational Senior Housing:  People want to live in nurturning, vibrant communities.  Churches want to extend their ministries, strengthen their congregations and build community.  Congregational senior housing, such as the visionary ELCA project in Sandpoint, Idaho is a win-win.

2.  College Campus Senior Housing:  Lifelong learning is a key part of successful aging.  Look for more colleges to create intergenerational communities and see the benefits of senior learners and neighbors.

3.  Increased Technology:  Technology is allowing members of the sandwich generation to be greater participants in their parents’ lives and care.  At the same time, it is giving people more control over their health and independence.  Look for increased growth in interactive technology in 2008.

4.  Memory Care:  Every 72 seconds someone develops Alzheimer’s Disease.  New memory care households focus solely on the challenges of Alzheimer’s and dementia, while eliminating the institutional style of the past.

5.  Green Construction:  Enviro-friendly and sustainable development is increasing in senior housing and will continue to grow in 2008.

6.  Catered Living:  Combines independent living and al la carte assisted living services.  This housing type allows a person to stay in their home even when they need or want more assistance.

7.  Smart, Innovative Design:  Look for innovative designers, such as Michael Graves to increasingly bring their skills to aging and using smart, creative design to improve people’s lives. 

8.  Livable Communities:  More cities are getting hip to integrating senior housing close to other community resources such as transportation, shopping and libraries, rather than sticking them in the fringes next to nothing.

9.  Successful Aging Centers:  Look for wellness centers connected to senior housing that help people of all ages and abilities nurture their physical, intellectual, social, emotional, spiritual and vocational health.  These increasingly serve as larger community resources for successful aging.

10:  Virtual Retirement Communities:  In this model, all the amenities of a senior housing community are brought to an exisiting neighborhood, such as the model Beacon Hill Village.  New bricks and mortar might include a very small health center that provides more intensive care when needed.

We invite you to download Ecumen White Papers on a range of subjects related to changing aging, including senior technology and senior housing development tips in our online library

Interesting and very good news from the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.  It is launching Catholic Senior Services — an “umbrella” organization that will use the network of Catholic senior care organizations and parish programs in the Twin Cities to become a one-stop resource center for seniors and their families.

Catholic Senior Services, which has been in the planning stage for four years, will begin with its four founding organizations:  Catholic Eldercare of Minneapolis, the Franciscan Health Community of St. Paul, St. Therese’s New Hope and St. Therese’s Southwest.  The goal is to have a Catholic Senior Services center in every one of the 12 counties that make up the archdiocese.  This is a coordinated response from teh Archdiocese to prepare for the age wave.

We see a great deal of synergy between senior housing and faith communities.  Baby boomers told us in our Age Wave study, that they want to be close to spiritual opportunities.  We are developing a senior housing development in conjunction with First Lutheran Church in Sandpoint, ID.  Ground breaks next month.  Aging provides a great opportunity for faith communities to expand their ministry and build community.

It won’t be a surprise when , one of the pioneers in developing Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs), enters Minnesota.  They have a lot of appealing features that people would dig here.

Check out this Erickson Retirement Communities  commercial.  It hits directly at what a lot of what people are thinking, . . . they want something different.   

What are your thoughts on the commercial?

At Left, Leah-Killian Smith, leader at The Villages of North Branch is warmly greeted by resident Edna Holmgren during one of the last days of a former county nursing home in North Branch, Minn.  Photo by Richard Tsong-Taatarii, Star Tribune.

“This is going to be so different.  My new room will be nice.  But the rest of the place is so interesting that I don’t think I’ll be spending much time in my room anymore.”

The above quote by Carole Feakes, who is moving today from Green Acres Country Care Center in North Branch to the new Ecumen community of The Villages of North Branch, really outlines a big difference between the the yesterday and today in our profession.  The Minneapolis Star Tribune has a very interesting story about The Villages of North Branch, a new senior housing development that will open today. 

The All-Important IT Factor

While The Villages of North Branch is brand new and beautiful, The Villages’ success is going to be driven by the team members who create and nurture IT. 

Find out more about IT in this discussion launched by Debbie Manthey.  Share your thoughts.  IT is what makes the beautiful interior design of bricks and mortar come to life.  The IT is what you’ll find today as The Villages team members and community volunteers welcome 68 people to their brand new homes.  The IT is IT.

Before and After Photos

Here are some of the before and after photos from North Branch.  One photo you’ll notice is a collage of historic photos from North Branch.  The Villages of North Branch feature a number of photos from the Historical Society.  What will be particularly neat is that there will be story tellers who live at The Villages who will be able to to share the stories that these photos represent.

Pastor David Olson of the First Lutheran Church in Sandpoint is someone with vision.  Here in a Finance and Commerce article by Brian Johnson, he talks about his and his congregation’s foray into senior housing development:

David Olson will never forget his first pastoral visit to a nursing home.

“I was greeted with the words, ‘Pastor, I am being held against my will and I need your help to escape,’” recalled Olson, a Lutheran minister with Minnesota connections who now has a congregation in Idaho.

“That is the nightmare of senior care for people: that they will end up essentially being housed against their will. “

Olson’s experience was part of the inspiration for a senior housing project that’s about to break ground in Sandpoint, Idaho.

His congregation, First Lutheran Church at Sandpoint, is developing the $14 million, 87-unit facility with help from Ecumen, a Shoreview-based nonprofit that manages and develops senior housing.

When it’s completed next year, the project will offer 60 units of “catered living” for seniors and 27 units of “memory care and enhanced assisted living” in a structure that will be physically attached to the church and spiritually attached to the greater community.

Olson said the goal is to create senior housing that “avoids being an elder ghetto and provides positive, stimulating environments in which people will choose to live, as opposed to consenting to being placed there. “

Ecumen, which is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), will manage the Idaho facility after it opens.

The Shoreview firm believes the project could become a model for other churches that have land for development. It sees senior housing projects developed with faith communities as a national “growth area. “

“We are getting calls all the time from would-be clients who want to talk with us,” noted Steve Ordahl, Ecumen’s senior vice president of business development services.

Ecumen is counting on a recently announced partnership with two other major senior housing players - St. Louis Park-based general contractor Adolfson & Peterson and St. Paul-based design firm Pope Associates - to help those projects move forward.

Other church-connected senior housing projects are popping up closer to home.

In Minneapolis, for example, Spirit of the Lakes Church plans to create 41 units of senior housing on church-owned property at 1238 E. Lake St. Its development partner is Powderhorn Residents Group.

Hennepin County recently approved a $37,150 grant for the project, which could begin this fall.

And in Prior Lake, Presbyterian Homes is partnering with Shepherd of the Lake Church to create 156 units of senior housing (82 independent living, 56 assisted living, and 18 memory care) on the church’s 80-acre campus.

Adolfson & Peterson and Pope Associates are part of that project team, as well. It’s nearing completion after a year of construction, and the first residents are expected to move in by mid-July.

The campus includes short-stay apartments for homeless teenagers, and a “town center” with a restaurant, a convenience store, a gift shop, a book store, barber and beauty shops, exercise and dining areas, and a 120-seat theater.

Future phases will bring an 80-bed skilled nursing home and 45 apartments for people 55 and older. The nursing home will be attached to the church, and the apartments will be in a series of five unattached brownstone buildings.

Construction will start next spring on a YMCA, also attached to the church.

Kermit Mahlum is the chief operating office for the Prior Lake development, known as Shepherds Path.

During his 10 years of planning the project, Mahlum spoke with other large churches in the metro area.

“I believe this is going to be the next wave of church facilities, where they do campus settings,” he said. “We are hopefully on the leading edge. There are two or three other campuses like this around the Twin Cities, but this is the first we are aware of where the senior facility and a YMCA are both attached to the church. “

Eric Schubert, Ecumen’s director of communications, said the senior housing industry is “just touching the cuff” of innovative development, including projects that link 55-and-older housing with college campuses.

“It’s a new way of looking at senior housing,” Schubert said. “It really fits in with larger community development, as communities look to use space well and connect resources rather than just isolate seniors on the fringe of town. “

Olson said the faith community has the resources and knowledge to become a leader in senior housing development. The Lutheran church, for example, has been involved in senior care for more than 100 years, he noted.

First Lutheran in Sandpoint sowed the seeds for its project back in 1960, when the church purchased its current 6-acre site. At the time, the site was on the outskirts of town, but it’s now in the center of activity.

As Sandpoint became a hot spot for retirees, developers pressured the church to sell its 4 acres or so of developable land.

Rather than sell to a third party, Olson and the congregation opted to do their own development. He said there’s sufficient collateral in the land and in the existing church building to do the project without raising additional funds from the congregation.

Residents in the new development won’t have to be members of First Lutheran or any other church, Olson emphasized.

But he does see the project as an opportunity for the church to extend its ministry.

“We view it as a ministry and an extension of the congregation, offering not only housing, but a Christ-centered community open to all, caring for the spiritual needs of our residents as well as physical and emotional needs.

“We feel that for many of the residents, that is a central ingredient in terms of what they look for in quality of life. “

The Minneapolis Star Tribune highlighted Ecumen’s new senior housing development partnership yesterday. Below is the text from the “Inside Track” column:

Senior Boom

A trio of Minnesota construction heavyweights are joining forces to create a senior housing development team that will take advantage of increasing demand for senior housing facilities built in conjunction with churches and faith-based communities.

The Twin Cities-based partnership includes Ecumen, Minnesota’s largest nonprofit senior housing company; Adolfson & Peterson Construction, and Pope Associates.

Ecumen will provide management services, Adolfson will be the general contractor and Pope will provide architectural services to the team, which will be known as Team Ecumen as it pursues projects nationwide.

This partnership began as an interal partnership for our own projects, but we see how it can be beneficial to others who want to develop senior housing, e.g combined expertise, efficiencies, etc.  

There have to be a lot of other ways that senior housing, aging services and other organizations can partner to better serve customers. 

Nationwide senior housing projects get easier with formation of new development partnerships

SHOREVIEW, MN June 18, 2007 — http://www.ecumen.org – Aging services provider

Ecumen, Minnesota’s largest non-profit senior housing company, has expanded with the launch of its senior housing development partnership TEAM Ecumen.Collaborating with Ecumen in this endeavor are Minneapolis-based Adolfson & Peterson Construction, who will serve as general contractor on Ecumen-led projects, and St. Paul-based Pope Associates, who will be the lead architect.

“This partnership is focused on creating senior housing that enhances the larger community,” says Steve Ordahl, senior vice president of business development services for Ecumen. “This partnership dramatically simplifies the senior housing development process for our clients.”

An early senior housing project by Ecumen, already in progress, is in Sandpoint, Idaho, which was recently named one of the country’s Top 10 Retirement Spots by U.S. News & World Report. Being developed in partnership with the First Lutheran Church of Sandpoint, the Luther Park at Sandpoint senior housing development will include independent and assisted living and be physically connected to the church.

Senior housing development projects designed in conjunction with faith communities represent a growth area in markets nationwide. Unfortunately the complexities and expenses of dealing with multiple vendors on a single development project keep many such projects from ever getting off the ground.

“TEAM Ecumen, by combining our partners’ proficiencies, reduces or eliminates many of the hurdles that organizations encounter when developing senior housing,” says Ordahl.

Ecumen also provides senior housing management services. Ecumen currently manages more than 40 senior housing and long-term care communities for other owners. In addition to its Idaho project, Ecumen is involved in several other senior housing development projects in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa.

About The Partners

Adolfson & Peterson Construction

Based in Minneapolis, Adolfson & Peterson Construction (A&P) (www.a-p.com) provides project delivery solutions for senior housing, religious and healthcare providers. With sales in excess of $425 million, Adolfson & Peterson is currently ranked 82 on the Engineering News-Record Top 400 General Contractors list. Adolfson & Peterson has offices in Minnesota, Colorado, Arizona, and
Texas.

Pope Associates
Based in Saint Paul, Pope Associates Inc.(www.popearch.com) is one of the Upper Midwest’s largest architectural firms and maintains registration in 32 states. Pope’s extensive senior housing portfolio includes cooperatives, condominiums, rentals, independent and assisted living, memory care, health centers and continuing care retirement communities.

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Entrepreneur Berry Brunk and blogger (He blogs at Future of Senior Housing) shares a quote from a new study about aging in place and assisted living from the National Investment Center: “The [senior] housing industry (At Ecumen we call it a profession) needs to change its sales and marketing message to place more emphasis on these communities as places that enable residents to get more from life, rather than places to receive care. It is not being suggested that grandiose promises of entertainment and excitement be made, but rather the elements that provide a sense of community, friendship, belonging, enjoyment, fun, education and continuing life need to be stressed more.” The study isn’t available online, but Berry outlines several highlights from it that are interesting to people working to figure out and innovate in senior housing and services.  You can also read what boomers are thinking about aging here.

Because there are approximately 77 million baby boomers in America and 1.5 million in Minnesota, we talk a lot about the baby boomers and their impact on senior housing and services, but the true next generation of seniors is the “Silent Generation.” 

Gene Dolloff, who heads senior dining services at Morrison Management Specialists visited Ecumen recently and shared with us interesting information on the Silents. Morrison serves approximately 400 senior housing communities in the United States and many continuing care retirement communities, which are popular in other parts of the country, but haven’t hit Minnesota. Morisson’s research is qualitative and quantitative.

Here are some interesting items from Morrison’s research as to how Silents (which were born between 1925 and 1942) differ from the GI Generation:

- Silents are more assertive, questioning than GIs.
- They travel more.
- More independent, demonstrate more control over choices.
- Less formal, more social, more vocal
- More health and fitness conscious
- More educated

Looking at some of the key characteristics of Silents, it’s clear that they’re going to demand different senior housing options and services as they age. Innovation can’t wait for the baby boomers.

A new study led by the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging and funded by MetLife Foundation in partnership with the National Association of Counties and the National League of Cities finds that only 46% of American communities have begun planning to address the needs of the exploding population of aging baby boomers.

 Information gathered from local governments surveyed shows that:

• in 1/3 of those communities older adults do not have access to a range of needed, preventative health care services;
• more than 1/3 of communities do not have fitness programs for older adults;
• many communities are not addressing the mobility needs of an aging population;
• Only half the communities reported having home modification programs that adapt the existing homes of older adults to address physical limitations which would allow seniors to live in their own homes.

To see what Minnesota baby boomers are thinking about in terms of successful aging, read the Ecumen Age Wave Study.