Renaissance Senior Living of Vero Beach, now under construction at the corner of 10th Ave. and U.S. 1, will have a 35-unit assisted-living building and a 25-unit dementia-care building side-by-side. It is a sister project to Grace Rehabilitation Center, which is located adjacent to the new facility.
The project comes in response to a growing need for senior-care apartments in Indian River County and a trend toward facilities that offer a continuum of care. Seniors and family members are favoring facilities with apartments offering varying levels of service on the same site with skilled nursing and memory-care accommodations, making a move to greater care a matter of yards, not miles.
Ground broke in October and construction should be completed by late-2016. Owners representative Jack Silver said total construction costs will be about $10 million.
Vero Beach businessman Byron Defoor, who owns Grace Rehabilitation Center, partnered with Barry Ray, president of Tennessee-based Legacy Senior Services, to open the facility. This is their first local project together, but they’ve partnered on others throughout the Southeast, Ray said.
“He and I have been dreaming about this for a while,” Ray said. “I’ve been doing this since 1988. Sometimes we buy existing, sometimes we manage for others and sometimes we build and manage.”
“It’s been growing as a trend over the last 15 to 20 years that when families make a choice, they would rather not make a change later,” Ray said. “As we all know, change becomes harder as we age.”
The site for the Renaissance project was chosen because Grace Rehabilitation Center is next door, at 2180 10th Avenue. Besides rehabilitation services, Grace offers skilled nursing care, completing the continuum of services.
The three-story assisted-living building will be all new construction built on a site that once housed a gas station and a small repair shop, Ray said. The dementia-care building next door will be one story, growing out of the rehabilitated bones of what was the “Thorpe building of office suites,” he said.
Market research also influenced the choice to build a senior-living facility in Vero Beach. “It’s a growing, aging population,” Ray said. “There are several fine facilities in the area, and most run a strong occupancy. There is a demand for more supply.”
The apartment rates are not finalized yet, Ray said, but should be in a few months. “We’ll start taking deposits in May or June. I doubt we fill up before we finish construction, but we expect a strong response from the pre-marketing.”
Indian River County census data shows the 65-and-older population grew from 27.7 percent in 2010 to 30 percent in 2014, and a number of senior-care and senior-living projects are being planned or built in the county.
The City of Sebastian held a ground-breaking event earlier this month for Pelican Landing, a 99-apartment complex with assisted living and memory-care sections at 13085 U.S. 1. Watercrest Senior Living Group of Vero Beach is the owner and developer of the 65,000-square-foot facility.
The Town of Orchid will consider an application in April for a 120-unit assisted-living and memory-care facility on a seven-acre site in on A1A. If approved, it will be owned by Ken Puttick and managed by Watercrest Senior Living Group.
Downtown Fellsmere will soon have a combined unassisted living, assisted-living and memory-care facility called Fountains of Fellsmere on 23 acres along S. Carolina Ave.
Mirzam Group announced the development in 2014. Since then, Mirzam has gotten Fellsmere’s approval for a preliminary plan for the whole project and final development approval for the first phase, according to city Community Development Director Mark Mathes.
Mirzam managing member Oswald Sousa said the first phase will be 126 units – 40 memory-care and 86 assisted-living units – built at a cost of about $25 million. The second phase will include 130 unassisted-living apartments and come with a similar price tag.
Site preparation will start in about three months and vertical construction in about six months, Sousa said.
