Big Rock Partners (BRP) certainly does its research when scouting for sites to develop seniors housing. We wrote a few months ago that BRP was building a $70 million, 225-unit senior living community in Celebration, Florida, a planned community developed by the Walt Disney Company in the 1990s. Intended as a family community, Disney had never zoned land for seniors housing (and there is none around for 15 miles), so as residents in Celebration are aging, an unmet need grew. Plus, Richard Ackerman, founder of BRP, secured an exclusive right to build seniors housing for eight years, including an option to build on an adjacent 20 acres.
BRP plans to soon break ground on that project and open it by January 1, 2017. Ackerman has two other projects set to break ground in the next year, including one in just minutes from Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. Millennium Real Estate Group (BRP’s local development partner in this project) purchased the land a decade ago as part of a 50-acre property that it has developed to include luxury apartments, a medical office building and a cancer hospital. The senior living site is also located across from Buford Hospital.
What’s more is that in this great location, there has been no new rental senior living community in the Port Royal/Beaufort area in over 15 years. The $25 million (or $198,400 per unit, above average for the region which is about $168,600 per unit, according to our data) project will feature 60 independent living units, 45 assisted living units and a 21-unit memory care wing. Life Care Services will operate and market the community, which should compete well in the area.
