Link Senior Development and Insight Senior Living are forging ahead with vertically integrated senior living brand Ativo, with a handful projects underway and more to come down the road, including some relating to tech pilots.
“We’ve really had a productive year so far,” Ziebart told Senior Housing News. “We’re evaluating additional acquisition opportunities right now, so I think we feel encouraged by the year.” Insight Senior Living Principal Bryan Ziebart told Senior Housing News.
Link recently broke ground on a new senior living community in Albuquerque, New Mexico; and earlier this year, the company opened Ativo of Prescott Valley in Prescott Valley, Arizona. The Albuquerque project is expected to open in mid-2024, Ziebart said.
With Ativo, Link has targeted growth in tertiary and secondary markets. That will remain the strategy going forward.
Link is planning to break ground on a 202-unit community in Buckeye, Arizona known as Ativo Senior Living of Sundance; followed by Ativo of Santa Clarita, a 142-unit community in Santa Clarita, California expected to break ground next year.
“We just really focus on the supply-demand fundamentals,” Ziebart said, of the locations selected by Ativo.
Link Senior Development launched the Ativo brand in 2020 with Insight Senior Living as operating partner. Insight also operates three communities outside of the Ativo brand, according to the company’s website.
‘Insatiable and growing demand’
Part of the calculus behind the Ativo growth strategy is the prospect of future demand from older adults, particularly the baby boomer generation.
As such, Ziebart said Ativo plans to hold onto its senior living assets for the long-term.
“There’s an insatiable and growing demand for senior housing and care,” Ziebart said. “On a macro level, if you look through 2030 and beyond, there’s going to be a ‘crisis-level’ demand.”
That will lead to demand imbalances in various markets, regardless of the size, Ziebart predicted. New projects in markets that are overbuilt may run into issues, while smaller markets have more opportunity driven by needs-based demand, he added.
Looking ahead, Link and Insight are on the lookout for opportunities to team up with developers that have projects but can’t get a project over the finish line, Ziebart said.
Insight will grow “over the next several years” via a mix of new development and acquisitions, according to Ziebart. Insight operates five communities and have additional communities under contract to be acquired, along with the in-progress Albuquerque project.
Ziebart said Ativo sees opportunity in disrupting commonly-used operational tools, specifically relating to technology. For the Ativo brand, Insight built out internal operating tools that replace legacy technology used for operations.
“There are senior-housing specific things out there to identify better alternatives,” Ziebart said. “It’s not about what is best-in-class, but what is the best from a resident and customer and staff perspective. We build around that.”
Ziebart said he is seeing staffing headwinds softening. Even so, he sees new opportunities to use data analysis tools to improve hiring. For the remainder of the year, Ziebart said operators across the industry have a chance to “refine teams and focus on career development, training and building future leaders.”
“That’s what we’re focused on at every level,” Ziebart said. “Refining and reshaping the clay of each community to new form is hard but worth it long term.”
Insight Senior Living is also diving deep on predictive analytics, and Ziebart said the company’s ecosystem of operating tools will help with earlier identification of cognitive decline and fall risk.
The company recently formed a joint venture with business intelligence company Smilefish to “aggregate our data and create tools for our team and resident families,” Ziebart said. Insight also is in the process of formalizing a relationship with a2collective, which is helping to test emerging technologies aimed at helping older adults live longer, healthier lives.
Insight Senior Living will additionally apply for a grant via the National Institute of Aging, a part of the National Institutes of Health, to develop an “AI pilot tool” that use data the company collects to proactively alert families and staffers of potential issues.
“We have had to create entirely new tools for our business to operate on because the industry tools simply are inadequate to accelerate our AI objectives to improve resident care and wellbeing,” Ziebart said.
Companies featured in this article:
Ativo Senior Living, Insight Senior Living, Link Senior Development
