Welltower, in partnership with real estate investment firm (and newbie to seniors housing), Hines, has acquired a site to develop an assisted living/memory care community in Midtown Manhattan. The original owners of the two adjacent properties that make up the one site brought in Eastern Consolidated to represent them in the sale, for which the terms were not disclosed. Design and development plans have been started, but no scheduled start date has been announced. So, it looks like Omega Healthcare Investors and Maplewood Senior Living will have some competition for their Manhattan senior living development, which is located on the Upper East Side and comprises 20 stories of 214 independent living, assisted living and memory care units, at a cost of $246 million. That project is slated to begin sometime this year. Here goes the battle for the Big Apple; we’ll see who towers over whom.