New Holland-based Garden Spot Communities is absorbing another local senior living nonprofit through affiliation, advancing the organization’s long-term growth strategy.
Garden Spot is currently affiliating with Frederick Living, the organization announced Friday. The process for affiliation has been underway since December 2022, Garden Spot Communities CEO Steve Lindsey told Senior Housing News, and is anticipated to complete around January 2024.
When the affiliation process concludes, Frederick Living will join the other Garden Spot Communities with Garden Spot Village and Maple Farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
Garden Spot Communities had been approached by Frederick Living regarding the affiliation, according to Lindsey. Both organizations also have interacted previously, following a trend of “coopetition” among different senior living operators in the Lancaster County area.
The affiliation makes sense for both organizations, given the challenges non-profit operators can face when scaling up for the future, along with both being Mennonite organizations. And in this case, it allowed Garden Spot to preserve the 125-year legacy of Frederick Living.
“As we went through that process, we really became convinced that we had enough alignment … that it made good sense to explore this further,” Lindsey said.
The affiliation is part of Garden Spot’s overall strategic growth for long-term sustainability and Lindsey said the organization has been quietly speaking with other organizations to partner with.
Last year, Garden Spot also sought to affiliate with two other nonprofits, but those efforts ultimately fizzled later in the year.
Things have been going well for Garden Spot Communities since it was featured among the Top 25 “Best Senior Living” list from U.S. News and World Report in May 2022. Occupancy for the organization is over 98% with a growing waiting list, and in terms of workforce Lindsey said the operator is close to halting its use of staffing agency workers in the near future.
Workforce issues, which have been front and center for the wider senior living industry since the genesis of Covid are still a challenge for Garden Spot Communities. The leadership team is still in the process of figuring out how to recruit and retain talent to address this, Lindsey said.
Garden Spot Communities is also in the planning phase of a campus expansion for its forthcoming New Holland location, with the hope being that it is completed within 18 months, Lindsey said.
The organization is also in the process of completing a storage unit business for the benefit of both residents at its New Holland-based campus, as well as for the surrounding community..
Looking ahead, the organization is open to continuing to affiliate and partner with more senior housing providers in order to grow its presence further.
“We believe that … in order to sustain some of the economic turmoil that we are certain will come in the future, you have to be a certain critical mass in order to accomplish that,” Lindsey said. “That is a conversation we will continue to have … to align with other good organizations.”
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