If you think of new apartments in Charlotte, your mind probably goes first to the many new luxury, youth-oriented complexes popping up all over the city.

But a Maryland-based developer has a different idea: building apartments for the 55-and-over set who are neither rich nor poor. Arden announced last month that it’s planning four such complexes in the Charlotte region, in Huntersville; Matthews; Indian Land, S.C; and Charlotte’s Mallard Creek area. It has plans in the future to expand to other cities in the Southeast.

Their plans call for single buildings with about 130-150 rental units, which are between 700-1,100 s.f. and go for an average of $1,600 a month.

Senior apartments, with pickleball: Arden plans four senior apartment complexes in the Charlotte region to tap into a growing number of people aged 55+ who want apartments with people their age. (Rendering courtesy of Arden)

In an interview with The Ledger’s Tony Mecia, Arden managing partners Kevin Woodley and Jim Lindsey explained that they see their projects as a sorely needed and distinct part of Charlotte’s growing housing market. Remarks were edited for clarity and length:

Q. What are you up to and what are you seeing?

Woodley: We came at this back in 2020 asking, “How do we solve the ‘middle market’ void of senior housing?” We looked around at a couple different cities. And Charlotte made sense from a couple of different avenues. It's obviously a growing city. It just so happened that later on, we figured out it was the No. 1 “baby chaser” town in the country.

We came at it because we have experience in higher acuity assisted living and memory care. And, from that experience, we realized that there are a whole lot of people that come to some of those facilities and say, “Hey, I'd love to live in these communities, and I want to be around people my age, but, you know, I can't afford it,” or “I don't need three meals a day.” It's a little bit of a different option for seniors that's not currently in some of these markets.

It certainly helps that the millennials are moving to Charlotte, because their grandparents are going to chase them. We look at it like there's an immense amount of money being raised for people to age in place, and to age in their home. We certainly think there's some validity to that, but at the same time, we think people want to be around people their age. They want to be around their family and their friends, and their doctors and the grocery stores.

Q. How is what you are doing different than other properties serving that 55+ market?

Woodley: What we've done is we're going to be providing services, but we're unbundling them. So you'll be able to get meal service from third-party vendors. You can then bring some of these elements that you would get with independent living, but instead of buying them all like a big bundle, sort of like a cable bill, we’re unbundling them, and providing them a la carte. So if all you’re seeking is living in a community of your peers, that barrier to entry is now much lower.

We think it’s an innovative new concept in senior living.

It opens up access to many more people. It allows us to serve what’s called the “missing middle” of housing. On the senior housing side, there’s luxury housing, which pencils [works financially] on its own. And then on the low end, there's affordable housing, and that gets subsidized through government programs. The middle is a much more difficult problem to solve.

Q. What are some of the amenities? I talk to developers in South End, where millennials are, and they say, “We’ve got the bike racks. We’ve got the dog-washing station. We have the private rooftop bar.” What are some of the amenities that you have geared toward people 55 and up?

Woodley: It’s just a large community room, large seating areas, game rooms, craft rooms, a business center, a wellness room where you can do yoga and on-demand classes. We can bring in trainers to do physical therapy. We’ve got a fitness room and then a pub/game room. A lot of these rooms are designed to be flexible.

And then we’ll have a pickleball court. That’s obviously a wave that’s going on across the country for everyone. At the bigger property, Mallard Creek, we’ll have a pool.

Lindsey: It’s designed to be friendly to seniors and to have people have friendly run-ins, friendly interactions.

A lot of people don't realize that if you’re older and you're single, there can be a pretty acute lonely factor that occurs. When we talk to our target demographic, people want safety, and they want security, which we offer by having one building and controlled access. But the other thing that people want is community and really sort of solving that loneliness factor that exists.

Just think about the alternative, where someone is living in an apartment building. They could be living in a building on the far side of the property, and then someone else their age is a long walk outdoors and up some stairs to get there. And then, all the amenities are going to be sort of millennial-focused. As they are walking to the TV room, there's going to be some millennial program or football. And of course seniors love football, but do they want to be watching it with a bunch of raucous 20-year-olds that are having a big Sunday game day?

Q. There’s a lot of senior housing in the Charlotte region, but it sounds like what you’re doing is on a smaller scale than, say, Sun City?

Woodley: Yeah. When you think about Sun City, you think about Del Webb or Pulte, you think of active adult for-sale communities. We would look at those folks maybe selling their home there and moving into our facility. Those folks are probably in the mid- to high-60s. Some of those homes are like, I don't know what a home in Sun City is, but something tells me it’s north of $400,000 or $500,000. So there are still people that can’t afford to go in there.

We hear a lot when we talk to planners, and they say, “There’s a ton of senior housing here.” But when you actually look at it, you look at some of the big CCRCs [continuing care retirement communities], it might be $400,000 just for the initiation fee. Or they look at independent living and say, “Well they can just go over there and get a 400-square-foot studio,” where the kitchen is not a full kitchen and it’s $2,800 a month. There’s a lot of nuance to senior housing, and there are not a lot of options for folks who want to stay in their communities at a relatively attainable price.

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