Irwin Investors has tapped Anthem Memory Care to manage a nine-community memory care portfolio previously operated by Sinceri Senior Living.
This addition nearly doubles the Anthem portfolio, bringing the total number of communities operated by the Lake Oswego, Oregon-based memory care operator to 21. The transfer also marks Athem’s entrance into the states of Washington, Minnesota, Michigan and Ohio.
Eight of the nine communities have 66 beds and will be transferred to Anthem on Feb. 1. Anthem will also begin managing a 56-unit community in Tumwater, Washington on March 1.
Anthem has “bounced back” to pre-Covid occupancy levels, according to CEO Isaac Scott, who believes the company can lend that positive momentum to its nine newly added communities.
“These properties have not been as quick to bounce back [in occupancy],” Scott told Senior Housing News. “We feel like we can assist with that.”
The communities currently have occupancy rates as high as the mid-80s and as low as the mid-60s.
Anthem plans to add more regional staff, technology, and training programs to bring the communities in line with its specifications. Anthem also plans to station an in-house therapist at each community to work directly with residents on occupational and speech therapy — a “mainstay of Anthem communities,” Scott said.
In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, most operators put a stop to in-person tours due to federal or local restrictions. Anthem attempted to quell these issues by ramping up marketing efforts, including virtual tours.
“I can’t say that everything we do is right,” said Scott. “But I would tell you that what we did to manage our communities and facilitate re-leasing those communities has been far above our expectations.”
Anthem in the summer of 2021 saw four consecutive months of sales that were nearly record-setting, Scott added.
The deal came together thanks to a longstanding relationship between Anthem and former JEA Senior Living leaders Cody and Jerry Erwin, who developed and currently own the communities
“We have been close friends but also close business acquaintances for going on 12 or 13 years, so they really know how Anthem operates,” said Scott.
Historically, Sinceri was primarily focused on memory care, but the company pivoted to serving the wider independent living and assisted living sectors last year after rebranding from JEA Senior Living last year.
“When I came on board and we started to think about the future of Sinceri Senior Living, we started talking about, why not go into other product lines? Why not talk about assisted living and independent living?” Belford said on a 2021 episode of the SHN Transform podcast. “There’s more opportunity for us to expand our services into those other product lines, and that was really the reason why we thought repositioning ourselves with a new name change … made a lot more sense.”
Companies featured in this article:
Access Industries, Anthem Memory Care, Irwin Partners Architects, Sinceri Senior Living
