Iowa independent living facilities are adapting to draw more residents

CEDAR RAPIDS — If they want it, the residents at the Villas at Stoney Point can have a very active social calendar.

Throughout the day, program coordinators offer fitness classes, watercoloring, free movies — all within the space of the Cedar Rapids facility. Since moving in nine months ago, Jo Ellen Johnson said she’s become a social butterfly.

“I’m surprised by the fact that I turned out to be more social than I thought it was,” she said.

Johnson shares an apartment with Jo Bader. The pair, who both worked at the Cedar Rapids Community School District before retirement, had lived together for decades before moving to the Villas.

Susan Dumbaugh, 75, is another resident at the same facility who said she has benefited in the switch from living alone to living in a community setting.

“I wouldn’t want to live in house again. This is easy and fun living,” she said.

These women are among the first residents who have moved into a Cedar Rapids-based independent living facility since it opened its doors nine months ago.

The Villas at Stoney Point’s approach is part of a nationwide trend of independent living facilities attempting to retool and rebrand themselves, moving away from the senior-living label and instead favoring the feel of an active community for people 55 and older.

Their goal is to entice individuals such as Johnson, Bader and Dumbaugh who seek out the social benefit of community living as they enter their next phase in life.

This re-imagining comes as occupancy at long-term care facilities and other senior housing facilities have taken a hit throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. As the state enters its third year of the pandemic, officials at local senior living facilities say they’re beginning to see normal interest levels from potential residents of nursing homes and assisted living centers.

However, the same can’t be said for independent living.

“The pandemic put a huge dent in independent living,” said Tricia Hart, lead living counselor for Keystones of Cedar and the Keystones of North Liberty.

“Families who were looking for independent living, they’re not going to move because it felt safer at home.”

Vacancies increased during pandemic

Nationwide, senior housing occupancy rates — which ranges from independent living to skilled nursing facilities — dropped to an all-time low in the first quarter of 2021 at 78.8 percent. That’s 8.7 percent lower from the first quarter in 2020, according to the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care, which provides market analysis on the senior housing industry.

Independent living and assisted living occupancy rates also dropped to a record low. Independent living occupancy was 81.8 percent, a 1.6 percent drop from the first quarter in 2020 and a 7.9 percent drop since March 2020, the report showed.

A report from Moody’s also found a similar trend, with the nationwide vacancy rate at senior housing properties reaching 16.9 percent in the second quarter of 2021 — well above the pre-pandemic five-year average of 8.7 percent.

Vacancies at independent living facilities were 15.9 percent in the second quarter of 2021, compared to 9.5 percent in the first quarter of 2020.

It’s not surprising the pandemic has discouraged potential residents from senior living facilities, according to Beth Burnham Mace, chief economist at NIC. She said in the report that data in the next two quarters will signal “whether consumers have moved beyond the pandemic and are again considering senior housing properties.”

Cedar Rapids-based senior living communities have seen a dent in interest among potential residents locally since the coronavirus arrived in Iowa two years ago. Fear of COVID-19 was the main driver for independent living, Hart said.

However, Keystones did not see any effect on its assisted living facilities or memory care centers. Hart said they continued to see individuals in need of that level of care, despite the pandemic.

Re-imagining senior living communities

The Villas at Stoney Point, a 99-unit facility in southwest Cedar Rapids, was a $25 million project that opened on May 1, 2021. The independent living apartment complex is associated with Stoney Point Meadows Senior Living and Memory Care.

The building currently has a 25 percent occupancy rate, said Steve Melchior, director of housing at Stoney Point Meadows and Villas at Stoney Point.

The Villas is marketed toward those aged 55-plus, promoting its active schedule and amenities that includes a full indoor pool, a gym with machines and free weights and a pub, among others.

Officials shy away from the term “senior living community,” saying many individuals don’t want to be affiliated with nursing homes.

“No one likes to think they need assisted living,” Melchior said. “That’s why this building is completely independent.”

That’s why many companies in the industry are attempting to re-imagine the market to entice more potential residents to their facilities, according to a Forbes report.

Though the need for services offered by assisted living facilities and other higher levels of care can be unavoidable, marketing independent living to older Iowans is a different challenge.

What drives people to independent living?

When encouraging someone to consider moving into an independent living facility, Hart, at Keystones of Cedar and the Keystones of North Liberty, said her biggest competitor is the home.

Most later baby boomers prefer to stay at home even if they face obstacles, such difficulty walking down stairs or getting into a bathtub.

Hart said she often runs into the stigma that moving into an independent living facility is the same as moving into a nursing home. There’s also the fear of the unknown in settling into a community setting, she added.

“If you’ve been on our own 70 to 85 years, and with the thought of a community living, there’s the fear of what you don’t know,” Hart said.

The social benefit of community living was the main driver behind Dumbaugh’s decision to move into the Villas six months ago. Her husband died a year ago, and she felt she needed to “upgrade” her social life after that.

Before the pandemic and her husband’s death, she said she never would have considered a senior living community.

“I never planned for living in a senior living community,” Dumbaugh said. “I would look at these nursing home buildings and my skin would crawl. But it’s not like that at all here.”

What ultimately convinced Johnson and Bader to sell their home and move into the Villas was the expected costs of maintaining their house. They needed a new furnace and a new driveway in the near future, both which would be significant investments.

If they needed to invest in their housing, why not invest in a new home where they didn’t have to worry about maintenance, they thought.

“Financially it looks daunting, but in the long run it isn’t if you’ve done any financial planning ahead of time,” Johnson said.

Johnson also said they wanted to look ahead as they get older and as they may need more assistance and care.

“I knew we needed to do something,” she said. “I don’t want to do it last minute, and I don’t want to put it off and have our younger relatives have to deal with it.”

Nursing home market growing in Cedar Rapids area

Proposed sites and new facilities under construction have increased in recent years as the senior population — both locally and across the state — has grown exponentially. However, much of the new development has focused on higher levels of care.

Just in the past year, Cedar Rapids’ two hospitals announced development of two new senior living facilities, both which will open to residents by mid-2023.

Mercy Medical Center partnered with Minnesota-based Presbyterian Homes and Services to construct HallMar Village, a 237-unit senior living complex on Cedar Rapids’s northeast side. Officials have not disclosed the cost of this project.

The development — which will include independent and assisted living apartments as well as a long-term care facility — replaces HallMar Nursing Home, located on Mercy’s campus. Hospital officials say the needs of local seniors have outgrown the 55-bed residential care facility.

HallMar Village also will house a 23,000-square-foot building that will serve as a central location for memory care services.

UnityPoint Health-Cedar Rapids this past July announced construction of the Cottages at UnityPoint Way, $25 million project in partnership with Cedar Falls-based senior living company, Western Home Services.

The senior living community will comprise three free-standing cottages with 16 to 20 units each, all offering a model of care specific to residents who have dementia, Alzheimer’s or face other memory loss challenges.

Officials behind both senior living developments say the growing of the older population was the main driver behind these investments.

According to the latest data from the State Data Center of Iowa, nearly 540,000 Iowans were aged 65 and older in 2018. By 2050, that total is expected to nearly reach 688,00 individuals — which would account for 20 percent of Iowa’s projected population.

By 2050, it’s anticipated 79 of Iowa’s 99 counties will see at least 20 percent of its population made up of older residents.

In the Cedar Rapids area alone, the 65-plus demographic is projected to grow 18.3 percent in the coming years, said Michelle Niermann, UnityPoint Health-Cedar Rapids president and CEO.

And with the growing population comes an expected boom in demand for certain services — especially housing for those in need of memory care.

Some estimates say about one in 10 individuals aged 65 and older have an Alzheimer’s diagnosis, for a total of about 16,000 individuals living in Eastern Iowa and about 63,000 statewide. Among those aged 85 and older, as many as a third are living with Alzheimer’s.

By 2025, estimates used by the hospitals say the number of individuals living with Alzheimer’s will grow to about 73,000.

By 2050, that total is expected to be roughly 189,000.

Comments: (319) 398-8469; michaela.ramm@thegazette.com