A large university in Florida hopes to foster ties between seniors and students by affiliating with a continuing care retirement community (CCRC) set to open near its campus.
If all goes according to plan, workers will break ground in July, 2019, on Legacy Pointe at UCF, a 296-unit community located near the University of Central Florida in Orlando. Irving, Texas-based Greystone Communities will manage and market the roughly $170 million community once it opens. The land is owned by the CCRC Development Corporation, a 501(c)(3) organization. Greystone is also working as development coordinator for CCRC Development.
The CCRC will come with an array of university-based services and perks for residents, including a student ID card and access to the school’s library, athletic events, lectures, concerts, performances and other amenities, according to Zan Reynolds, project coordinator for Legacy Pointe.
“Our Legacy Pointe members will be treated like VIPs on the UCF campus,” Reynolds told Senior Housing News.
Legacy Pointe will also play host to students enrolled in many the school’s colleges, including its nursing school, college of medicine, and the Rosen School of Hospitality Management, which Reynolds touted as a major differentiator for the CCRC. The idea is for students to hold jobs, complete internships or do their rotations in the senior living community, thus fostering an intergenerational environment.
Like most other CCRCs, residents at Legacy Pointe will pay an upfront entrance fee when they move in, then a monthly payment. Initial fees for independent living units start at around $289,000, and monthly fees will likely range between $3,000 and $5,000 per month, Reynolds said. Entrance fee refundability ranges from 50% to 95%, depending on the contract a resident chooses.
Legacy Pointe isn’t the only university-based senior living project in the works. For example, Pacific Retirement Services is planning to open a high-rise CCRC with upscale amenities and similar collegiate perks for residents at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona.
The folks behind Legacy Pointe hope that the project, like the community in Arizona, will result in a close connection between the university’s students and the seniors who live there. Legacy Pointe residents will also have an outlet to continue learning well into their retirement.
“[Residents] still want to be very energetic, and the youth of the campus brings that,” Reynolds said. “It helps to vitalize the senior living community.”
So far, that idea seems to have resonated. In less than five months, Legacy Pointe already has 36 deposits.
To learn more about what senior living or housing providers stand to gain by teaming up with universities, read the Senior Housing News report, “Inside The Future of University Partnerships in Senior Living.”
Click here to access the complete report, which examines the topic of university partnerships in senior living—including all of the the successes to the failures—and reveals why creating strong ties with a university is one of the smartest moves a senior housing provider can make.
Written by Tim Regan
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