


KeyBank Arranges Financing For Low-Income Seniors Housing
Working on behalf of Hampstead Development Partners, a San Diego-based real estate company that focuses on developing and preserving affordable housing, KeyBank Community Development Lending and Investment secured acquisition, construction and permanent financing for a new affordable senior apartment community in Salt Lake City, Utah. Originally built in 1916, the four-story building features 80 units and will be renovated by Hampstead. The unit mix features studios and one-bedroom floorplans averaging 416 square feet, and all units cater to residents earning 60% of the area’s median income. In addition, 20% of the units are reserved for non-seniors, while the rest will be restricted to... Read More »
Monticello Announces Memphis-Area Refinance
A couple of skilled nursing facilities located around Memphis, Tennessee found first lien debt financing through MONTICELLOAM, LLC and its affiliates (Monticello). These facilities averaged around 50 years in age, and totaled 336 beds. No details were released on their operating performance or census. Their owner, an experienced owner/operator with a portfolio of more than 8,750 licensed beds across the county, had worked with Monticello multiple times in the last several years to fund other skilled nursing acquisitions, and turned to them again to refinance the two facilities with $41.0 million in first lien debt, or $122,000 per bed. Read More »
New Perspective Opens New Wisconsin Community
New Perspective Senior Living is operating a new community in Franklin, Wisconsin (Milwaukee MSA). It’s certainly a tough time to open your doors, but apparently initial move-ins have already started and even exceeded initial expectations. We hope it continues throughout the summer. Featuring 149 units, the community caters to independent living, assisted living and memory care residents on its six-acre campus, which is directly adjacent to the Milwaukee Milkmen baseball stadium. Games start early next month, in case you were wondering. The two-story lobby and reception area include fireplaces, water features and natural stone appointments. There are also several... Read More »
Employee Raises at No Cost?
One academic believes it won’t cost nursing homes a dime to raise wages. Okay, here I go again about The New York Times. This time, it is not about a reporter, but a contributing academic who is an economics professor at Northwestern University, Seema Jayachandran. Last weekend she wrote about how higher hourly wages can increase productivity, which can translate into higher-quality service. She based her conclusions on two studies looking at department stores and nursing homes. I will talk about the latter one. The study she cites suggests that if every county increased its minimum wage by 10%, there could be 15,000 fewer deaths in nursing homes each year. While I am sure an extra... Read More »
How Design Can Help Seniors Housing Communities Deal with COVID-19
COVID-19 will result in broad and far-reaching changes in the way seniors housing communities operate going forward. Some will address more short-term issues, and others will likely be here to stay for some time. In addition to changing their operations, providers will also look at how design can make caring for seniors in this post-pandemic world a safer and better experience. We asked Frank Rees of architecture, interior design and planning firm, Rees Associates, how he would approach design changes for both future and current communities. After consultation with many clients and friends in the industry, here are his thoughts: As we think about how design can help communities protect... Read More »
Recession Resistant Assisted Living? The Audience Speaks
When the seniors housing industry emerged from the Great Recession, it quickly became apparent that it performed well during that economic downturn, especially when compared against other “real estate” asset classes, and especially the assisted living sub-sector. It became known as “recession resistant,” something that made a lot of investors happy. Now that we have officially entered into the first recession since the Great Recession, we thought it was a good time to talk with industry leaders and get their take on whether assisted living would once again be recession resistant, even though it would be a very different kind of recession. Last week we hosted... Read More »
Ziegler Arranges Another Bank Bond Financing
We know that the lending market has slowed considerably, and has been perhaps the main reason for M&A coming to a crawl, but just a week after arranging a bank bond refinance for a CCRC client, Ziegler has arranged another one for a CCRC in Texas, resulting in a total of more than $150 million in proceeds across the two transactions. That’s an impressive sum these days. Most recently, Ziegler refinanced Westminster, a not-for-profit entrance-fee CCRC in Austin, Texas. Founded in 1972, Westminster has grown over the years to include 327 independent living units, 22 assisted living units, 30 memory care units and 55 skilled nursing beds on a 9.3-acre campus. Life Care Services (LCS) has... Read More »
Can COVID-19 Kill The CCRC Market?
We are fond of bringing up the fact that far too many people have put the CCRC (LPC) market prematurely in its grave. It especially happens when there is a recession, like 10 years ago, and now. We are hearing rumblings again even as suburban housing prices are rising as city dwellers are heading for the COVID-free hills. We are not even four full months into this pandemic, and a much shorter time since the economy has officially been declared to be in a recession, so there are still far too many unknowns as to what may happen. But CCRCs entered this recession in probably the strongest financial position they have been in since 2007. As a result, they may weather the storm better... Read More »
New Nursing Home Commission
Watch out. When the government creates a new commission on quality in nursing facilities, it can only mean higher costs, but without increased reimbursement. The members of the new Coronavirus Commission for Safety and Quality in Nursing Homes was named last week, and the provider side of the business was not very well represented, especially on the for-profit side. While Neil Pruitt, CEO of Georgia-based PruittHealth, was named to the commission, no other CEO of a for-profit company was named. The closest was the SVP of Clinical Operations & Innovations of Kentucky-based Signature Healthcare. Of the 25 members, 11 were from academic institutions, government... Read More »