Texas Real Estate Business

MAY 2017

Texas Real Estate Business magazine covers the multifamily, retail, office, healthcare, industrial and hospitality sectors in Texas.

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Caption Text Photo credit 36 • May 2017 • Texas Real Estate Business www.REBusinessOnline.com attracting that staff," says Formation's Maberry. Some employees might even live or work a second job within the larger de- velopment, adds Maberry. "A big part of our industry is service, so it's easier to recruit people who live right there in the master-planned community and can walk to work," notes Scott Doherty, senior director of operations management for owner-operator Life Care Services. A Little Less Legwork Maberry also admits to a "selfish reason" he likes to develop within a mixed- use property: The master developer has already done a lot of the groundwork. "It's getting harder and harder to find a high-quality, three- to five-acre site," says Maberry. "We can go into a mixed-use setting where another developer is taking a 20-acre site and carving it up, and they find us to be a very compelling use. Regular old land sites are pretty scarce anymore." "It's easier to get zoning approval in the mixed-use projects," he adds. "The mixed-use developers have already done a lot of the heavy lifting — setbacks and parking and heights and so on." The mixed-use developments also offer visibility for the seniors housing communities. With the stereotypical seniors housing site, set back far from the road and out of sight, neighborhood residents might not even be aware of the community. "We have a high turnover in seniors housing — three to five residents a month. If we're buried in the woods, that's not good," says Maberry. "If we're in a public setting, it's easy for advertising and marketing." Life Care Services owns and operates Timber Ridge at Talus, a seniors housing community within the 630-acre Talus master-planned community in Issaquah, Washington. Located on 10 acres of that plot, Timber Ridge's advantageous lo- cation at the entrance to the development means that every resident that lives in Talus sees the seniors housing community every day. "From an awareness standpoint, we get a lot of traffic," says Doherty. "We're the first thing people see when they come into the development, so it's good exposure for us." There is another marketing tactic that's unique to being located within a pub- licly visible area, such as a mixed-use development. Formation has begun to offer a form of retail and services within its com- munities. At Formation's upcoming development in Cranberry Township, the salon, dining venues and rehabilitation center will all have retail frontage and be open to the public. "The township wanted an urban, walkable community," says Maberry. "We're looking at making other spaces in our building look more like retail. That's not a profit center for us, but it's a nice thing to help us fit into that mixed-use center." The visual boost causes a tricky problem, however. People in the community don't even realize the building is a seniors housing facility. O U R R E C E N T R E T A I L T R A N S A C T I O N S northmarq.com RECON ICSC 2017 Attendees: Visit us at booth FP15 in the Finance Pavilion D A L L A S 972.392.3366 H O U S T O N 713.622.6300 S A N A N T O N I O 210.734.1844 ACQUISITION Fry-529 Retail Center 115,000 SF | CYPRESS, TX | CMBS REFINANCE Hidden Lakes Retail I & II 37,975 SF | LEAGUE CITY, TX | LIFE COMPANY REFINANCE Northville Plaza 14,400 SF | HOUSTON, TX | LIFE COMPANY Formation Capital recently expanded The Solana Vintage Park in Houston to include 117 additional independent living units. The property is located within Vintage Park, which offers apartments, a hotel, award-winning restaurants, boutique retailers, medical office buildings and a hospital. The Solana at Cinco Ranch in Katy, Texas, is surrounded by four shopping centers, in addition to nature trails, a swimming lagoon and nine grocery stores.

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