Benchmark, National Development Snap Up Connecticut Senior Housing
The trade was made as investment in the sector continues to bounce back from the pandemic slump.
A joint venture between Benchmark Senior Living and real estate investment and National Development have acquired Church Hill Village, a 71-unit senior housing community in Newtown, Conn., for an undisclosed price. The property, which includes assisted living and memory care units, has been renamed the Benchmark at Newtown.
Webster Bank provided the financing for the deal. Previously, National Development and Benchmark Senior Living’s formed partnerships for developing a new senior living community in Scotch Plains, NJ, and the acquisition of an assisted living and memory care facility in Smithtown, NY.
The property’s senior assisted living community features spaces designed in a modern farmhouse style, including several dining venues, a creative studio, entertainment room, hair salon and physical therapy room. Outdoor amenities include enclosed courtyards with a putting green, life-size chess board and a fireplace.
Located in Fairfield County, the most populous county in Connecticut, the community is near the intersection of I-84 and U.S. 6, and also near Newtown’s Main Street.
National Development has developed and invested in more than 33 communities over the past 30 years. Benchmark, based in Waltham, Mass., operates 21 communities in Connecticut and a total of 68 communities throughout the Northeast.
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Benchmark offers independent living, assisted living, memory care, respite care and skilled nursing, and nine communities in Fairfield County, including nearby Village at Brookfield Common in Brookfield, Benchmark at Ridgefield Crossings in Ridgefield and the continuing care retirement community Meadow Ridge in Redding.
Senior housing’s speedy recovery
As an investment play, senior housing has made a bounce back since the slumps of the pandemic and interest rate shocks. Investors are interested because except for a number of major West Coast cities, most markets have fully recovered to their pre-pandemic occupancy levels, and in fact near all-time highs in some secondary markets, JLL reports.
Moreover, at the same time that demand is up, development of new senior housing facilities is at its lowest levels in over 16 years, JLL notes. Thus rent growth is among the highest of all CRE sectors
Transaction volume in Q4 2024 was roughly the same as the quarter before, at just over $15 billion nationwide, according to JLL. But both quarters represent a recovery from late 2020 and early ’21, when the total dropped below $10 billion, alongside shallower dips in 2022 and ’23.
