Memory Care slowing down?

Have we begun to see a slowdown in the interest in building memory care? The last few weeks, we have been hearing some rumblings of developers beginning to be even more cautious, if not dismissive, of constructing stand-alone memory care centers or memory care units within assisted living in certain markets. Last week, we wrote of an assisted living community undergoing a $4.5 million expansion, in which the developer planned to nearly double its assisted living capacity, while taking away one memory care unit. What influenced this decision was the number of AL inquiries the developers received, and the fact that the Cleveland, Ohio market already had plenty of new memory care communities, including the 94-unit Middleton of Granville and the 18-unit expansion of The Weils, both of which broke ground this summer. According to NIC MAP data, the Cleveland MSA also has one of the highest occupancy rates in the country for assisted living, at 92%. Indianapolis, Indiana, Jupiter, Florida and Pinellas County, Florida are all reportedly filled to the brim with memory care communities, with one developer in Pinellas County already constructing two 80-unit stand-alone memory care communities, within a few miles of each other. Plus, we have also heard from a few individuals that building assisted living or memory care in Texas is simply out of the question, particularly, we’ve heard, in towns like Katy, The Woodlands and McKinney, towns that coincidentally you’ve heard about quite a lot just in Senior Living Development News. Demand simply may not be growing enough right now for this high quality (but high cost) memory care product. We’ll have to wait and see how the new communities fill up.