Fast fill-up at a Los Angeles CCRC

When Los Angeles hasn’t seen a new CCRC in 20 years, either there is no demand for one, or the city is starving for one. Clearly with the new Fountainview at Gonda Westside, which presold 92% of its units with 10% deposits in less than nine months, there was a need. Outbidding several other developers, Los Angeles Jewish Home for the Aging (LAJHA) secured 2.5 acres in Playa Vista, a highly-desirable, master-planned community that had already pre-zoned this land for a senior living community. Numbering at 200 units (176 IL, 12 AL, 12 MC) and 460,000 square feet in six stories, this entrance-fee, not-for-profit CCRC sponsored by LAJHA is the first on the city’s wealthy Westside and the second CCRC for LAJHA, which is seeking to lessen its exposure to governmental reimbursements. The entrance fees are steep, anywhere from $450,000 up to $1.3 million (averaging $750,000) and 90% refundable contingent on resale and the resident moving off the campus, but the community sold quickly (probably a record pace). San Francisco-based Gensler designed the community, and the contractor is Pasadena, California-based CW Driver. To finance the new CCRC, LAJHA issued $144 million in tax-exempt bonds, secured by Cain Brothers with a fixed rate under 4% and insured by Cal-Mortgage.