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In a matter of months, Avenue Development’s first Viva Bene community will open its doors near St. Louis.
The active adult community, which is slated to be managed by Greystar, is opening with a layout that includes 161 units and amenities including space for gathering and coworking, outdoor space and a wellness and fitness center.
The community’s centerpiece is a preventative care model and onsite clinic with primary care provider Sevi Health and a care coordination program that is dubbed “WellVB.”
Through those efforts, Viva Bene residents can access services to stay well and get help navigating that care. The community’s services include personal concierge services, assistance scheduling specialists, virtual and onsite wellness and medical consultations, health seminars and annual wellness assessments.
Indianapolis-based senior living and health care developer Avenue Development initially set out to create a new senior housing brand marrying middle-market rates with access to preventive wellness services more than two years ago.
With the December opening of Viva Bene rapidly approaching, Avenue is about to get its first proof of concept to truly test the model. But it is not waiting for the results of that test to plan its next chapter of growth, according to Laurie Schultz and Mike Mattingly, both principals and co-founders of Avenue Development.
Already, the company is plotting out its next growth chapter, including through both ground-up development and picking up existing communities.
“We are pedal-down on a new development pipeline, and we have an acquisition strategy,” Schultz told Senior Housing News.
Viva Bene represents not only a new path forward for Avenue Development, but also for the active adult sector as a whole. As more and more companies launch their own active adult growth platforms, pressure is building for those companies to offer something different than their peers. Communities with built-in access to health and wellness services are just one way companies are seeking to attract a new generation of older adults.
New model to debut with Viva Bene
For years, senior living operators have looked to create new models for active adult that can help meet the wants and needs of the incoming generation of older adults. With Avenue’s new $37.8 million senior living community in St. Peters, Missouri, the company is readying a next-generation model with the goal of doing just that.
Many older adults are grappling with chronic conditions that affect their quality of life and can prompt moves to higher levels of care. But it’s the belief of Avenue Development’s leaders – and some other companies – that senior living residents can live better lives and stay in place longer with preventative care.
That is the central thesis of Avenue’s Viva Bene brand. Through WellVB and the partnership with Sevi Health, residents can get both the wellness and primary care they need to stay active and well.
“It’s, in our mind, the strongest amenity that we can offer amongst every one of our competitors,” Mattingly said.
WellVB is built into monthly rates, and residents of Viva Bene will also be able to opt in to the primary care services that Sevy Health provides. Services through Sevi are billed to a resident’s preferred insurer, be that commercial insurance or an MA plan.
“It’s not necessarily that the resident has to be on a Medicare Advantage plan,” Schultz said. “In fact, they’re still taking commercial insurance because 20% of our residents are still working.”
Providing services for residents at an affordable rate is also a big focus of Viva Bene. Monthly rates for the community start at about $1,550 for a one-bedroom unit and go up to about $3,200 for the largest floor plans.
One small risk of active adult is that residents stay so long that the community they live in can no longer accommodate their care needs, a phenomenon known as “acuity creep.” But Mattingly and Schultz aren’t worried about that.
Instead, they are more worried that others in the active adult space will see the success of models like Viva Bene and try to jump into the space with half-baked plans that dilute quality overall.
“My fear is that, because people perceive it as easier operationally, [active adult] gets diluted for all of us,” Schultz said. “So, we need to set ourselves to a different standard.”
With regard to Viva Bene specifically, Schultz said the biggest risk ahead lies in how well it achieves its goal of keeping residents well, and whether other competitors follow suit in creating similar models.
“The risk is for Viva Bene that people catch on to what we’re doing to provide preventative-based wellness services to residents,” she said. “We can’t supply the demand for this type of product just as Avenue.”
But she also believes that Avenue must “spread the word” about what it’s doing in order to bring about a change and promote more awareness to preventative health models in the active adult and senior living sectors.
“We think there’s a lot of benefit to this, both from consumers on the value side and in how much they’re paying, but also for the healthcare system itself,” she said.
Avenue in growth mode
Avenue Development isn’t stopping with its soon-to-open community in St. Louis. The company is targeting a growth strategy of about four new-development communities and up to two acquisitions per year.
In future new development projects, Avenue plans to build in clinic spaces just as it had done with its St. Louis-area community. Sevi also will continue to bring its virtual hybrid model to new communities.
With new acquisitions, Avenue is keeping its options open. The company also plans to launch a new brand for more conventional senior apartments that borrows from the Viva Bene model.
To help facilitate the company’s growth strategy, Avenue has hired Matt Gorman as its chief investment office. Gorman has worked on Wall Street and in other locales managing private equity dollars across the country and abroad, Mattingly said.
“He will help us financially scale to that level to be able to target the strategy of four assets a year of new development and two assets a year – plus or minus – of acquisitions,” he added.
Avenue is still amassing funds for growth and assembling its roster of investment partners. But the company has its eye on markets for new growth that include Indianapolis, Detroit and in parts of Pennsylvania. In general for now, the company will focus on new growth in states in the northern part of the country.
Looking ahead, Schultz believes that all active adult senior living operators must keep their eye on what the boomers want from senior housing.
“Our industry is not listening to the baby boomer generation,” she said. “Our customers are more sophisticated than we’ve ever seen. They want more customization and we have to continue to create active adult living that they actually want.”
