Assisted Drinking, Eating, and Living in a Modern Care Facility
From a serpentine sofa below soaring ceilings, you watch a row of glassware on the bar catch the natural sunlight pouring into the room. "Would you care for a glass of wine?"
That may not be the assistance most of us think of when it comes to housing and care for the elderly, but it's part of what's on offer at Oakwood Senior Living,1 a 62-unit assisted living facility built by local developer Rick Dover in a hundred-year-old elementary school in a historic downtown neighborhood of Knoxville, Tennessee.
Each apartment in the 5,000 square-foot center has towering windows and ceilings, unique dimensions and layout, and the blend of luxury retro and modern finishes and decor that are a trademark of Dover Development's award-winning heritage restorations. Upstairs, oversize double doors open from a fine-dining space onto a second-floor balcony where Oakwood Elementary's original schoolbell still rings. Below, a solar-enhanced vegetable and flower garden, walking trails, and a putting green fill out the footprint left vacant 23 years earlier and blend into the tended lawns, old trees, and tidy, postwar single-family houses of the surrounding blocks.
Dover's senior facilities work splendidly in this small Southern city with modest growth and per-capita income, low population "churn" and housing turnover, and abundant inner-city development incentives. But many aging residents of big cities, suburbs, and rural towns also want to stay close to the neighborhoods where they raised their families. They, too, need affordable personalized care and are drawn to what Dover calls "a cozy residential feel." And across the board, what's on the menu where they live really, really matters.
The Oakwood's bar, lounge, reception, and
admin offices were once a school gym.
These preferences reflect the new values of aging consumers in every area of life.2 After all, Millennials don't own curiosity and discovery in food culture, the insistence on broader choice, on personalized and custom offerings, and preference for healthy, whole, and ethically produced foods. Some assisted living establishments are even offering happy hours and themed bars as events for their guests.3
Eating, drinking, and gathering to eat and drink take up a good portion of the day in an assisted living center. The time commitment alone makes food services and dining one of the most important factors in resident satisfaction. Providers take note: that's unlikely to change in the next decade as the first cohort of Baby Boomers reaches the predicted assisted living-ready age of 80. The bar is open, and it has definitely been raised.
References
- Oakwood Senior Living. Senior Solutions Management Group. Accessed November 2021.
- Trends in Senior Living Foodservice. FES Mag. Accessed November 2021.
- Cocktails in Senior Living. Senior Housing News. Accessed November 2021.