A senior living and health care developer is launching a new active adult company centered on middle-market rates and access to preventive care for residents.
Avenue Development on Thursday announced the launch of the new company, Viva Bene, with an inaugural project planned in the St. Louis suburb of St. Peters. While this is the company’s first foray into active adult development, Avenue has a plan to develop more communities elsewhere across the country in the future.
As planned, the first Viva Bene development will have 161 apartments with amenities including co-working spaces; a wellness hub with fitness, yoga and meditation offerings; and access to preventive medicine and care through primary care healthcare providers. Rates for a one-bedroom unit at the community are expected to begin at about $1,500.
In launching Viva Bene, the Indianapolis-based senior living and health care developer is seeking to create a rental active adult company that is both more affordable for residents, while also more suitable for them to age in place, according to Avenue Development Co-Founder Laurie Schultz.
“The holy grail … is, how do we make senior living more affordable, and how do we increase quality outcomes?” Schultz told Senior Housing News. “We’re doing it on the active adult side of the continuum.”
Avenue has worked with a variety of senior living operators, primarily through joint-venture partnerships. On the skilled nursing side, the company has worked with Ignite Medical Resorts; and on the assisted living side, Cedarhurst, Randall Residence, Trilogy Health Services and IntegraCare.
Since its founding in 2015, the company has developed about $115 million in real estate, with multiple projects totaling about $81 million in value under construction and an active development pipeline of about $85 million.
Living well
Viva Bene is an Italian phrase that translates into “living well” — and that is a phrase that can be used to describe what Avenue is trying to achieve. The active adult company is rooted in four “pillars”: affordability, wellness programming, health care company partnerships, and technology.
Each Viva Bene community is planned to offer programming focused on resident wellness. For instance, in addition to socialization opportunities, residents also will be able to take part in fitness or healthy cooking classes.
The company also plans to partner with health care providers in the markets where it develops Viva Bene communities, either by co-locating a clinic onsite or providing care remotely or through community visits.
While nearly three-quarters of its work lies in the senior living industry, Avenue Development also has experience developing primary care clinics with providers and payers in the value-based care space. And although the company has not named any potential partners, it is “working with some very large national names” on that front, Schultz added.
Avenue also plans to build its active adult communities with infrastructure to support an array of technology, including telemedicine and voice-activated devices for communication. That, too, is an area here Schultz believes health care partnerships can play a role.
“Working with potentially a younger senior population, we have the ability … for preventive wellness, and to show that, using these principles of value-based care, we can keep residents healthier longer,” she added.
For now, the company plans to operate its new community, though Schultz said there are plans to work with third-party managers in select markets.
While work is not starting on its St. Louis-area project until this summer, Avenue Development is not taking a “wait-and-see approach” to growth.
The company has a goal to grow the new company to about 1,000 units by 2026, potentially in markets that include others in the Midwest, North Carolina or Arizona.
“We have a very targeted approach that is an overlay of demand for active adult units, but also demand for these preventive care services,” Schultz said.
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