Ziegler announced that it will soon issue the first ever “Green Bond” financing for a senior living development. And it is for quite a sum. Enso Village, located in Healdsburg, California, is set to open in 2023 with 221 independent living units, 30 assisted living units and 24 memory care units on a 16-acre campus. It is being sponsored by the San Francisco Zen Center, a network of affiliated Sōtō Zen practice and retreat centers in the Bay area, and The Kendal Corporation, a national not-for-profit provider of senior living services. Greenbrier Development is building the campus, which has already achieved 94% reservations two years out from opening. Quite impressive.
Enso Village will be constructed with green building materials for both exterior and interior portions of the community, and 65% of all construction waste will be diverted from landfills. The community will also use its food waste for composting on its urban farm and select drought-tolerant native plants to minimize water consumption. As far as green energy production, Enso Village will have a solar array estimated to produce enough solar energy to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 9,000 kilograms kgCO2e, exceeding the LEED energy baseline by 24% in greenhouse gas reductions.
All of these efforts resulted in third-party approval of the property’s Green Bonds, which go on sale this month to raise $308 million for development costs. That would equate to about $1.12 million per unit for the project. We don’t see those numbers every day, but then again, it is San Francisco.
