Priority Life Care is working towards a long-term goal of serving 10,000 older adults.
To get there, the company is changing out technology partners, evolving operations and preparing for new growth with an emphasis on staffing and leadership development, according to CEO Sevy Petras.
The company’s leaders also are resetting their growth targets. In 2024, Priority Life Care launched a $10 million fund to attract and fuel co-investment tied to senior living acquisitions. But the operator’s leaders saw a bigger opportunity for growth after conversations with brokers and investors, combined with strong demand for new senior living investment, Petras said.
In October, led by JLL, Priority Life Care and Almanac Realty Investors announced a $275 million strategic capital partnership for future capital commitments.
“What works well for us is the flexibility our arrangement gives us to build relationships with different capital partners. We’re transparent with our partners about those relationships, and we see them as complementary. That flexibility lets us pursue each opportunity with the partner best suited to it,” Petras said.
With the new fund in mind, Priority Life Care plans to pursue acquisitions, third-party management contracts and new development opportunities in 2027 and beyond. The Fort Wayne, Indiana-based senior living provider is currently working on two active new development projects in New Jersey and one in Indiana.
Evolving beyond ‘managing reports and not managing outcomes’
In 2026, Priority Life Care’s leaders have laid a foundation for the future, evaluating staffing and systems management.
Those moves follow a multi-year period of executive changes for the operator. In 2022, Priority Life Care promoted longtime executive Ryan Person to chief strategy officer, building off his experience assisting in business development and transitions of new communities, and named Dennis Murphy as chief investment officer in 2024.
“What we found is that there are so many opportunities out there to grow, and we needed to reorganize internally to have a full asset management team,” Petras said.
With Murphy overseeing investments and acquisition opportunities and Person overseeing the company’s internal technology and systems management, the table is now set for Priority Life Care to grow, Petras said.
Person oversaw an overhaul of the company’s tech platforms, switching up its community management software and electronic health record platform and onboarding an AI-supported health platform. These changes were “massive shifts” to provide the foundation necessary to prepare for future growth.
“Coming up to the end of the year and into 2027, I feel like we’re really using data in a way that can help actually steer the sails and guide us toward our goals,” Petras said. “This has been part of the fuel for how we’re setting ourselves up for next year.”
The changes in the company’s technology platforms and C-suite transpired because the company’s leaders felt “we were managing reports and not managing outcomes.” New technology partners will help change that narrative, Petras added.
With new technology at play, Priority Life Care will be “more connected” in a way that can help the company reach its “next level.”
“We are now able to get action plans across all departments and then go back to our department heads with better information in a way that’s more connected and comprehensive,” Petras said.
Going forward, Petras said it is critical for senior living providers seeking new growth to understand their technology platforms and data capabilities that create a foundation to support improving operations alongside capital partners that are aligned in timing, strategy and mission.
“I do think that is going to be the biggest change that we’re going to see in the industry over the next five years,” Petras said.
Managing risk, growth and staffing challenges
With more older adults considering making the move to senior living, Petras sees risk management and industry advocacy as critical priorities the sector must address as more scrutiny gets placed on the industry from state and federal lawmakers.
But she believes that providers can take steps to address potential risk through technology, especially in areas like ambient monitoring systems, fall mitigation and clinical care management.
“The more employees we have, the more older adults we serve, we’re going to have more incidents, but I think that can be mitigated by technology and ambient monitoring,” Petras said.
This led Priority Life Care’s leaders to evaluate the company’s technology platform and rethink its systems to evaluate how they match the company’s growth plans. This willingness to overhaul and evaluate stems from Petras’ roots as an investment banker, she said, recognizing that companies can’t grow too large too quickly in a sustainable way.
Petras sees Priority Life Care’s growth with Almanac as following in the footsteps of legacy senior living providers including Benchmark Senior Living and Sunrise Senior Living as both companies grew over time.
“Historically, we’ve heard capital partners say, ‘You can only do this with us.’ Our arrangement works well because it isn’t exclusive. A year ago, I might have felt nervous about telling our capital partners what we were doing, but we’re not competing with them,” Petras said.
Future acquisition opportunities could include “light” value-add properties and not buildings in need of a “heavy turnaround.” This comes as 75% of Priority Life Care’s communities are at 80% occupancy and above.
Priority Life Care’s leaders are focused on eliminating preventable revenue loss associated with vacant units. The two-year rollout helps community teams identify and address the delays that keep units from generating revenue, with an emphasis on coordination and timely follow-through
“I think it’s going to become more common and that everyone is going to adopt some form of it,” Petras said.
This approach of matching prices to characteristics of each unit, including size, number of available units and location, matters in implementing a dynamic pricing strategy, Petras said. Instead of focusing on only the most sought-after units, sales staff can adjust pricing to help fill units that might otherwise stay vacant. Managing pushback from staff and residents is another critical part of overhauling the company’s approach to pricing. This ties into Petras calling for more providers to be transparent in unit pricing to avoid sticker shock and confusion from residents.
2027 sets the stage for growth
With a new fund open and plans to bring in an additional top leader, Priority Life Care is poised to “apply all of the knowledge and energy we’ve had in 2026” towards what’s ahead in 2027, Petras said.
With new technology and systems at play, Petras sees a way for the company to “leverage off of the power” of these new platforms to improve operational performance.
The company’s leaders are also planning to start construction on two developments in 2028. Beyond that, they are seeking a “mixture” of acquisitions and third-party management agreements next year.
“Now is the time to really lay the foundation for doing that and making sure that we have a team that can do it because it takes a lot of time,” Petras said of future development.
Operating success next year and beyond requires companies to “manage belonging and not buildings,” meaning that operators that have strong staffing models and consistent operations that cater to the lifestyles and tastes of older adults will have success regardless of portfolio size, Petras said.
That approach also applies to how Petras views staffing, and senior living providers must take steps to address employee culture and motivation and foster work environments at communities that prevent burnout. Leadership development is critical for providers to improve turnover, and the company relies on its “PLC University” training program where staff train for 90 days to understand culture, participate in breakout sessions and learn skills that are required to be promoted into community leadership positions.
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