Retirement News : Seniors : Seniors settling in

Seniors settling in

Date Added: 14-03-2005

For developers of senior housing, Fort Collins couldn't be more attractive.

The city has a thriving aging population and is full of active retirees who volunteer, work part time and take advantage of the Fort Collins Senior Center.

Northern Colorado also has an abundance of regional medical centers nearby to treat older residents, and a new hospital is scheduled to open in Loveland in 2006.

And to make the situation even better, the city was recently labeled by AARP The Magazine as one of the best places to re-invent your life, causing an influx of seniors to the area.

As the baby boom population ages, demand for senior housing increases as well. Baby boomers - those born between 1946 and 1964 - make up about 31 percent of the population, or about 76 million people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

So it's no wonder that national developers have handpicked the city for new assisted- and independent-living facilities.

The question is whether Fort Collins can really support all the housing developers hope to build in the next several years.

If three major projects currently under development open as planned, the city will have an additional 450 assisted- and independent-living units in addition to several hundred that already exist.

Currently, about 17 percent of Larimer County residents are 55 or older, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

"There is a need, but if everybody builds, there will be like three people living in a place for 40 or 50 residents," said Yvonne Myers, health systems coordinator for Columbine Health Systems in Fort Collins. Columbine is building a 94-unit independent-living facility called The Winslow off Shields Street and Centre Avenue. The $10 million project is scheduled to open in September.

The health system already owns a similar facility nearby called The Worthington, which also offers 94 independent-living units.

Two other projects in the works by Denver-based developers include a senior housing campus and another independent-living facility.

Spectrum Acquisition Partners is planning a 125-unit independent living facility on about 4.2 acres in the Rigden Farm subdivision at the southeast corner of Timberline and Drake roads.

MacKenzie Senior Living is building a $60 million, 229-unit senior living campus on 22 acres at the southwest corner of Oakridge Drive and McMurry Avenue.

Both projects are in their initial planning phase at the city and aren't scheduled to begin construction for several months.

While there is a need for senior housing across the country, developers in some cities have learned that there's such a thing as too much too soon, said David Schless, president of the American Seniors Housing Association.

In the mid-to-late 1990s, developers nationwide built more than 65,000 housing units and soon found that the market in some areas couldn't support all the facilities. As a result, several larger developers took over the smaller facilities, while others operated with high vacancy rates, said Schless.

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