With 30+ experience in both senior and non senior residential and all commercial development, brokerage and consulting, Rocky Mountain Senior Housing offers a range of capabilities rare even among senior related companies. We’re passionate about the value we add to our projects. Using ingenuity and creative problem solving, we build a collaborative team where high quality developments are delivered faster, better and at a lower cost. The various teams offer an exceptional integration of expertise in development, design, construction management and feasibility. This gives us a unique perspective and ability to successfully lead all phases of complex developments and/or transaction. Our team of professionals have years of combined experience, and have been part of many prominent construction projects in Colorado. Our team brings a proven track record of successfully managing and underwriting large, complex projects.
It was Plato who was credited with the saying “Necessity is the mother of all invention” but in real estate it could be altered to read “desperation is the mother of all development” especially when combined with the mother of all recessions. After the last global recession, our partnership was left with a very well located 4.3 acre site in Glenwood Springs that we had entitled in 2007 and 2009 for a condo hotel project that quickly became un-financeable, so out of desperation we were forced to reevaluate what had the best potential for debt and equity in addition to what were the true needs in the community. We very quickly came to the conclusion the Rocky Mountain Region had a significant void of quality senior housing and fortunately the capital markets were also starting to look more favorably on the senior housing sector so we took the plunge.
The most challenging aspect of senior housing from a developer’s standpoint is the operational side of the business. Our initial mentality was design it, build it and the operators will come but we quickly learned the entire senior housing development process hinges on the operator and this is of even greater significance from the capital side if the developer lacks experience in the sector which we did. On a positive note, most operators do not have the time or resources to find sites, work through the entitlement process and source debt and equity so there is an inherent and existing symbiotic relationship between developers and operators. In addition, choose an operator with common values and goals. Evaluate Feasibility Studies as a team and determine what concept is best for a location before starting the entitlement procedure.
The enlistment exercise can be very challenging especially in the smaller communities so one does not want to go through the process more than once. This further illustrates the need to be in affiliated with an operator that is involved in the preliminary design process. We were able to put this formula to work in Glenwood with a quality operator out of Wisconsin, First Phoenix Group, who is represented by Bill Henry of Evergreen Senior Housing and we have now aligned ourselves with a quality Colorado based operator, Vivage Senior Living for our next five project in Colorado starting with The Lodge at Ken Caryl, Golden Lodge Assisted Living, Montrose Lodge Senior Living all slated for construction starts in summer of 2016 and Sopris Lodge in Carbondale and Grand Junction Lodge in spring of 2017. We have two other locations in various stages of predevelopment as well, one on the Front Range and one outside of Colorado.
