Anthology Senior Living Sets New Direction With Its Largest Community to Date

Anthology Senior Living is bullish on senior living communities that include access to the full continuum of care, and a newly opened community near Cleveland offers a glimpse into the provider’s future.

The provider — which manages develops, acquires, and operates communities as an affiliate of Chicago-based real estate developer CA — is currently moving in residents at its newest community, Anthology of Mayfield Heights. At 192 units, the community in Mayfield Heights, Ohio, is Anthology’s largest. 

Though it may resemble a life plan community — with independent living, assisted living and memory care units and even some cottages for residents — it does stand apart from the product type in a few crucial ways. For instance, the community does not have an entry fee component, with rental rates starting at $2,800. The community also lacks a skilled nursing or rehab component, with Anthology opting to partner with third-party service providers to offer therapy, home health or hospice to residents that need it.

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Anthology of Mayfield Heights / Anthology Senior Living

Currently, Anthology of Mayfield Heights exists somewhat as an outlier in CA’s Anthology portfolio of nearly 30 communities — but it won’t stay that way for long, according to Andrew Agins, senior vice president of asset management at Anthology.

“There are several differentiators for this community relative to the competition in that market, and relative to what’s in our existing portfolio,” Agins told SHN. ”And you’re going to see a lot more of these types of communities from us in the future.”

Anthology’s decision to focus on full-continuum developments that stand apart from life plan communities is similar to moves made by some other senior living companies, such as Avamere and its Ovation senior housing brand.

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Focus on the full continuum

Previously, Anthology focused on communities ranging from 100 to 120 units, typically for residents with specific care needs. But with the opening in Mayfield Heights, Anthology is making a dedicated push toward communities that serve residents along the full continuum of care.

“To create a smaller community with a very specific focus, you’re targeting such a small piece of that market,” Agins said. “But if you’re offering different price points, different care services, different amenities spaces, different dining rooms, and you have a lot of options, you can serve residents more specifically to their needs.”

Mayfield Heights represents a new direction in terms of how CA and Anthology think about design and amenities. The campus consists of a main building surrounded by 10 independent living cottages. The cottages, in particular, were a strong selling point for prospective residents and almost all were sold during pre-leasing, Agins added. Each cottage has two units that share a wall, with ranch-style floorplans that span 1,400 square feet.

“We’ve had a couple of communities now where we’ve had cottages, and they’ve always been the first to sell at high rates,” Agins said. “And residents love living there.”

Anthology of Mayfield Heights comes with a new design approach that focuses on high-end finishes and modern lifestyle amenities. The community has multiple dining venues, a business center, clubhouse, fitness center, golf simulator, art galleries, library, pottery room and a theater.

Architectural firm HED, which partnered with Anthology on Mayfield Heights, included some biophilic concepts in the community’s design. They include rooms with balconies, outdoor courtyards that serve as activity hubs, and areas for leisure activities such as swimming, pickleball, gardening and meditating.

The community also comes with technology to help aid residents and keep them connected as they move along the continuum of care. One is Skynet, a resident response system with medical wearable technology from vendor Skynet Healthcare Technologies.

“We have some pretty incredible technology and built a lot of that into our new developments,” Agins said. “I think that is driven by the fact that we’re vertically integrated.”

Looking ahead, CA and Anthology will continue to focus on developing communities with larger footprints and access to the continuum of care. One such example is Anthology of King of Prussia, a 192-unit senior living community coming together near Philadelphia. The 11-story project is slated to open within The Village at Valley Forge, a 122-acre mixed-use lifestyle village, with numerous upscale amenities and services.

CA will also seek to acquire new communities to operate under the Anthology brand.

“Going forward, you’re going to see a lot of a lot of continuum-of-care models, a lot of larger-footprint models,” Agins said. “We’re going to continue to grow, and we’ll take advantage of the markets and hopefully build a really robust portfolio of communities all over the country.”

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