Old is (developer) gold: Builders targeting wealthy seniors with glitzy projects

Hines’ Midtown project for graying New Yorkers will feature $20K a month rentals

Rendering of 139 East 56th Street
Rendering of 139 East 56th Street

New York City developers are betting big on a wave of demand coming from seniors who want luxury homes in the city and are willing pay handsomely for them.

At Maplewood Senior Living and Omega Healthcare Investors Inc’s development at 93rd Street and Second Avenue, rentals will start at $12,000 a month, Bloomberg reported.
Similarly, at Welltower Inc. and Hines’ 15-story senior living facility at 139 East 56th Street, some of the apartments will go for as much as $20,000 a month.

While the city is grappling with a boatload of luxury new development inventory, developers expect seniors who will need assisted living in the city — and who have the means to pay for it — are a market that is majorly underserved.

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There are just 70 licensed memory-care beds in Manhattan, Welltower told Bloomberg, while no new assisted-living facilities have opened in the borough since 2005. Meanwhile, over the next 20 years, the population of 80-somethings in the United States is expected double.

“The risk is that you’d be the anti-Field of Dreams — you build it and they don’t come,” Michael Knott, managing director at Research Firm Green Street Advisors, told Bloomberg. “But the absolute lack of supply of this product provides some comfort that even though these are pioneering projects, there will be demand.”

The Maplewood-Omega development will feature similar amenities to those at high-end rentals, including a spa, movie theater and a “sky park.” Hines’ building at East 56th Street — where work is set to start this month — will feature limestone exteriors and marble bathrooms. [Bloomberg] Miriam Hall