• Grace Management Adds Five Ventas Communities

    Grace Management expanded its relationship with Ventas, adding five seniors housing communities owned by the REIT to its operating portfolio. The communities were previously managed under a triple-net lease structure. They include Brookdale Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, Illinois, Brookdale Northbrook in Northbrook, Illinois, Brookdale Springs Mesa... Read More »
  • Seller Boosts Census Ahead of Sale to JV

    Senwell Senior Investment Advisors sold Rose Hill Retirement Community, a 66-unit, 87-bed assisted living community in Marion, North Carolina. Originally built as a hospital, Rose Hill has been transformed by the seller over the past two decades into a senior care community. After a previous attempt to sell the community was unsuccessful,... Read More »
  • Joint Venture Buys Orange County Community

    A high-end seniors housing community in Orange County sold with the help of CBRE National Senior Housing. Aron Will and John Sweeny represented the joint venture seller in the deal, while Will and Matthew Kuronen arranged acquisition financing from a national bank. The loan came with a four-year term, a full term of interest only and a floating... Read More »
  • Developer Secures Construction Financing

    JLL Capital Markets arranged a $47 million construction financing for The Arbella at Blue Hills, a 164-unit, active adult community to be developed in Bloomfield, Connecticut. JLL worked on behalf of the developer, The United Group of Companies, Inc. (United Group) to secure the construction loan through Liberty Bank of Middletown, Connecticut.... Read More »
  • Midwest-Based Operator Refinances AL/MC Communities

    MONTICELLOAM, LLC, along with firm affiliates, provided a $28.5 million senior bridge financing for two Midwest seniors housing communities. The financing was originated by Karina Davydov, Senior Managing Director, Originations. The sponsor, a Midwest-based operator with a portfolio of over 40 seniors housing and healthcare properties and a... Read More »
Chartwell Retirement Residences: One Big Step Forward

Chartwell Retirement Residences: One Big Step Forward

Trying to increase occupancy for many providers has been a game of two steps forward and then one step backwards. This is usually because of the flu season in the winter months. The hope is always that the recovery will exceed the decline, year after year. The pandemic obviously through a wrench in that one. For Canada-based Chartwell Retirement Residences, the largest operator in Canada with nearly 200 communities in four provinces, the step forward after the winter months will be quite a big one, according to their forecasts. The good news is that their step backwards was much smaller this year than in 2022. Back in 2022, the company lost 130 basis points of census from December 2021 to... Read More »
Is Remote Work Really Impacting Occupancy?

Is Remote Work Really Impacting Occupancy?

There was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal last week that claimed there is a relationship between soft occupancies in seniors housing and more people working from home. The gist of it was that with more people working remotely full time, or even part time, they are better able to check on mom or dad who might otherwise be thinking about moving into seniors housing, and postponing the move because the kids are more involved. The first problem is that this assumes that the kids live nearby, and the reality is that many of their parents have already moved to warmer climates. The second problem is that it is much more than the need to “check” in on them. If they really need a... Read More »
Brookdale’s Occupancy Continues to Lag Industry

Brookdale’s Occupancy Continues to Lag Industry

Brookdale Senior Living reported its June occupancy levels this week, and while there were increases, those increases lag the increases for the overall industry, and absolute levels of occupancy also continue to lag behind the industry. Weighted average June occupancy was 76.8%, 20 basis points above May but 10 basis points below the occupancy rate last September. That is not progress, even acknowledging that the first half of the year is usually bad for census. Management observed that this was a 160-basis point increase over June 2022. While looking back a year is nice, let’s hope when they do it again in October that they are not showing a small 50-basis point increase year over year.... Read More »
Is Remote Work Really Impacting Occupancy?

60 Seconds with Monroe: SNF Industry Needs To Police Itself

As many of you would suspect, I am no fan of New York’s Attorney General, Letitia James. She politicizes too many things and definitely has a partisan agenda, and one which I do not favor. But after reading through the 300-page court filing against Centers Health Care and related companies, as well as its owners, well, I found myself agreeing with her. The cases involve the poor “care” of residents in a few New York nursing homes, as well as the alleged misuse of $83 million of Medicaid and Medicare funds for other purposes, including, allegedly, the purchase of a large stake in the Israeli airline, EL AL. Money is fungible, and one cannot distinguish between cash from private... Read More »
Sunrise, Hines and Welltower Open Another Manhattan High-Rise

Sunrise, Hines and Welltower Open Another Manhattan High-Rise

Sunrise Senior Living, Hines and Welltower announced the opening of The Apsley in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The Apsley is the joint venture’s second luxury senior living community in New York City. The first luxury senior living community by the partners was Sunrise at East 56th on the Upper East Side. It opened in December 2021 with 151 assisted living and memory care units, which was just months after Omega Healthcare Investors and Maplewood Senior Living opened Inspīr Carnegie Hill on the Upper East Side. That community is a 23-story, 215-unit assisted living/memory care building with an open-air skypark on the 17th floor separating different levels of care. Construction costs were... Read More »
Development Has Slowed, But Not Stopped

Development Has Slowed, But Not Stopped

Ziegler just closed a $25.34 million financing for a new seniors housing community in San Antonio, Texas, but these funds do not include the cost of construction. The new money will be used to purchase 27 acres in San Antonio, pay for the preconstruction development costs, and the costs of issuing the new debt. The community, to be called Bella Vida at La Cantera, will consist of 153 independent living apartments, 40 IL cottages and 16 memory support assisted living units. This pre-construction debt comes to about $121,000 per unit. There was no breakdown of the three uses of the proceeds.  The sponsor is the not-for-profit Forefront Living San Antonio. Brandon Powell, Managing... Read More »