Maplewood Readies Connecticut Site for Seniors Development
Maplewood Senior Living has closed on a six-acre development site in Bethel, Conn., for an assisted living and memory care facility.
By Dees Stribling, Contributing Editor
Bethel, Conn.—Maplewood Senior Living has closed on a six-acre development site in Bethel, Conn., for an assisted living and memory care facility. The parcel is at 46 Stony Hill Rd., in an area that has been rezoned to accommodate a variety of uses, including assisted living, but which is known its retail, restaurant and hospitality uses, with recent additions including a Big Y and Target.
The company plans to call the property Maplewood at Stony Hill. Site preparation for the three- story assisted living facility is scheduled to begin this summer, with completion slated in the late summer 2014. Perkins Eastman of Stamford, Conn., one of whose specialties is designing environments for older adults, will be the architect for the project.
The property will include 84 units and be fully dedicated to offering memory care. The building will consist of a mix of studio and one-bedroom apartments, and it will also be home to multiple, distinct “neighborhoods” for those who are living with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.
In particular, Maplewood at Stony Hill will offer several levels of care to residents with early, mid-stage and late-stage Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. According to the developer, the property’s programs are founded on an “emotion-based philosophy of care, focusing on providing an environment that allows residents to lead lives of dignity.” All Maplewood staff is specially trained in techniques to communicate with those living with memory loss.
Maplewood Senior Living has developed other properties for seniors in the neighboring towns of Newtown and Danbury, taking advantage of the increasing demand for such housing. According to the National Investment Center for the Seniors Housing & Care Industry, the average occupancy rate for seniors housing properties in the first quarter of 2013 was 89.1 percent, unchanged from the prior quarter, but up 0.8 percentage points from a year earlier. The first quarter of 2013 marked the first time since the second quarter of 2010 that the seniors housing average occupancy rate failed to rise.
