With margins improving and census remaining stable across the portfolio, Aegis Senior Living is poised for further growth in 2025 as the operator looks to close out this year strong.

The Bellevue, Washington-based operator’s operating margin currently sits at 30%, with occupancy remaining in the mid-80th percentile, according to CEO Dwayne Clark. However, the increase in operating margins and improvement in census have not come through concessions, he added.

“The industry is making progress because they’re giving up great deals, and we refuse to do that,” Clark recently told SHN. “You have to pick your poison: ‘Do you want occupancy or do you want margin?’ But we want both.”

While insurance and food costs have risen, operators must be “mindful” of their operating margin going forward as the path toward improved margins is narrower than in pre-pandemic times, he said.

This comes as the organization in recent years added executives to its ranks from the likes of Amazon, Nike, Louis Vuitton, Eddie Bauer, and Blue Nile Diamond Jewelers. By filling up the bench with talent from outside the industry, Aegis also maintains a roster of general managers, 50% of whom bring experience from the hospitality industry.

“When another [senior living] company steals from another company, you’re not really developing new knowledge,” Clark said. “We have a tendency in the industry to over-promote people, and when we do that, we get in trouble—so it’s about filling our brains with a different type of knowledge.”

Regarding the future of senior living development, Clark said future growth is “absolutely dependent” on interest rate relief, something that the U.S. The Federal Reserve has indicated it will come by the end of the year in the form of a rate cut in September and later in early 2025.

The company’s latest developments feature an assisted living and memory care community in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood, designed with Scandinavian-inspired aesthetics by Dahlin Architecture Planning Interiors. Additionally, Aegis has recently launched a new community in Laurelhurst, near the University of Washington campus, which includes a smaller football field specifically for memory care residents.

With those openings, Seattle-based Aegis Living has 38 communities across the U.S.

Aegis deals with a ‘different mindset’ to solve staffing challenges

Priming the organization for future leadership development and growth, Clark outlined “Vision 31,” which is Aegis’ effort to plan for the future with the “right leaders in the right seats on the bus.” This includes investigating the benefits of artificial intelligence and exploring the potential of offshoring certain aspects of operations.

Underpinning this effort is the fact that the face of today’s senior living workforce is younger and more “cause-oriented,” Clark said, referencing how new employees are motivated to give back to their local communities or to charitable causes.

“We’re dealing with a very different mindset,” Clark said. “It’s a different type of employee—they’re vocal, cause-oriented, and it’s a different mindset.”

Clark said the senior living industry is “starved for talent” as operators have a tendency to “over-promote,” leading to long-range mismanagement—one of the reasons Aegis leadership comprises experience from outside the industry, Clark added.

With the long-range planning effort underway, Clark said Aegis will be investigating the potential benefits of artificial intelligence in operations and exploring the potential role of offshoring aspects of operations over the next three years.

Heading into 2025, Clark said Aegis will further focus on staffing to ensure employees deliver the quality service marketed by the company—alongside better data analysis to improve operations.

“We’re always looking for new ideas and new ways of thinking in terms of how we can get better,” Clark said. “If there was one word I would use for 2025, it’s urgency — with ideas, with hiring, with revenue — we have to have urgency about all of it.”