A senior living operator for years has managed communities in Northern California. It has ambitions soon to grow beyond its stomping grounds.
The family owned operator, CiminoCare, has spent the last four years acquiring and stabilizing communities in Lassen County, Glen County, Butte County and Yolo County, all of which are north of Sacramento, California, bringing its total up to 12 communities. It has also started a consulting service to help other operators in the area build up and stabilize their operations.
According to CEO Mark Cimino, the operator has sought growth in smaller, rural markets with middle- to lower-middle-market older adults and access to Medicaid funding. While some of its communities are not in locations where they can take advantage of those programs yet, it still focuses on affordable pricing to keep these communities in their areas.
In one instance, CiminoCare acquired Eagle Lake Village, which had previously been owned by a real estate investment trust that was losing money by owning it, Cimino said. At the time of acquisition, the 77-bed community had around 30 residents, and with dedicated time, attention and effort over the span of three years, more than 60 residents reside there now and the community is deemed stable.
“It’s just this personal professional satisfaction of knowing that we were able to get that building and stabilize it and keep it as an asset for all the families, the seniors and the families way up in that rural spot,” Cimino told Senior Housing News.
By remaining family owned with private investors, it frees up CiminoCare to “do the best job we can and make it viable,” Cimino said. Part of why it’s able to accomplish this, according to Cimino, is in part because of the smaller portfolio size, which allows more resources and attention to be shared across the board.
“We’re spending more time on the asset, which probably means that the margin is less,” Cimino said. “It works because we’re just making sure that we can make our loan payments to the bank or to the private investor, have positive cash flow and do a good job.”
Looking to the remainder of 2026 and beyond, Cimino said the company is exploring options to expand outside of its regional operations to southern California and neighboring states, alongside focusing internally to build out the company’s culture, and is developing a variety of initiatives to drive it.
The process is meant to be slow and methodical, Cimino added.
CiminoCare is also growing the consultation side of its business, though demand fluctuates depending on the budget availability of clients who tend to be struggling. It’s because of previous consultations that the company is looking to expand into southern California in the first place as well.
“We’re still wanting to be very methodical,” Cimino said. “We realized through the pandemic things could unpredictably go sideways.”
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