Senior living developer, owner and operator Solinity has acquired a new community as part of a brand launch and growth strategy.

The acquisition of St. Ives, a 36-apartment assisted living and memory care community in Johns Creek, Georgia, is the first community in the company’s new Hometown Living brand. It’s also the step in the Knoxville, Tennessee-based company’s “aggressive growth strategy” to expand its reach around the U.S. Southeast.

The new brand aims to fill a gap in secondary and tertiary markets and provide a “highly skilled workforce, robust management support and great marketing support” that would typically be out of the price point for smaller communities, according to Solinity Founder and CEO Josh Crisp.

“In these smaller markets with lower density of demographic, you have some small individual owner operators that are traditionally smaller communities, and they’re really limited in services and their abilities,” Crisp told Senior Housing News. “As our industry has grown, what has happened is it’s become more difficult in the digital era for a small community to not only be able to scale their services, but have the marketing and sales sophistication to educate the consumer.”

The genesis of the idea to launch the new brand came from how people living in small towns often want resort-style food and care, but don’t want to actually live in a resort when they move into senior housing. But that doesn’t mean the communities will have large putting greens or huge theaters – instead, Hometown Living will focus on “hometown hospitality,” Crisp said.

Solinity’s next moves include two additional acquisitions underway and three master-planned developments slated to be completed within the next seven years.

Because Solinity is vertically integrated with a development company, management company and a marketing arm, it can better manage its margins with the strategy, Crisp said.

Future growth for the company will remain largely in the southeast, particularly within six hours of the Knoxville headquarters, where it can more easily deploy additional support.

Additionally, the communities Solinity will be looking to acquire have “good reputations” and “provide good levels of service.”

“They’ve put their sweat into caring, and they need help and support,” Crisp said. “We either come around them and allow them to become part of the greater ownership team and continue to do what they do … or we simply acquire the properties. We’re also looking for opportunities that have extra land around.”

The properties Solinity is developing will include multi generational aspects for living, such as workforce housing, non age-restricted housing and restricted housing for residents 55 and over with assisted living and memory care services.

Future announcements for the Hometown Living brand and Solinity are anticipated to occur in early 2025, with the remaining two acquisitions that are underway anticipated to complete within the next 12 months.