Active Senior Concepts Pushes Through Development Challenges With Two New Communities On Tap

Senior living developer Active Senior Concepts (ASC) is continuing its new-build efforts to beat competition to market and capitalize on future demand, according to CEO Paul Aase.

Forsyth County, Georgia-based ASC is the brainchild of Aase, who has nearly four decades of real estate and senior living development experience with a track record of providing hospitality-focused communities for senior living residents.

The company in 2023 sold its first two projects, full-continuum communities completed in 2017 and 2019 in the Atlanta metropolitan area, to Chicago Pacific Founders after successful lease-up and occupancy growth. Residential buildings at the communities are all attached to a central, 20,000-square-foot club amenity building with dining and amenities like a fitness center and theater.

Prior to the sale of the communities the communities were managed by AgeWell Solvere Living. The Forsythe community was approximately 250 units that included 75 condominium units on the campus with shared services and added a retail, mixed-use component along with 32 cottage units. The campus also included an equity option for certain units, offering an entry fee on certain units.

“That really became our model moving forward, we’re doing these large campus developments which are 60 acres which will have some form of for sale product,” Aase said. “They’ll have a traditional aging in place, IL, AL and memory care. All three components are important.”

ASC is currently developing two other communities in Sharpsburg, Georgia and Athens, Georgia with those properties both breaking ground in the last 30 days. Typical ASC developments emphasize a lifestyle-centric approach, featuring dining, fitness and social spaces aimed at catering to independent older adults, while still offering assisted living services as needed.

At Celebration Village Peachtree, a community coming together in Sharpsburg, Georgia, the developer’s project team started vertical construction earlier this month on a new sales and design center. The community will include active adult bungalows and concierge living apartments with access to on-site home care, restaurants and resort-style amenities including an aerobic pool, putting green, sport courts for bocce and pickleball, access to a private lake for fishing and a spa and wellness center.

The Peachtree campus is one of five Celebration Village locations underway or open, with additional communities in Athens, Snellville, Forsyth County and Acworth, Georgia.

The development firm is in the process of interviewing multiple, future operating partners for potential partnerships as co-GP operators in the new communities under development in Georgia.

ASC likes to identify future sites for development adjacent or near retail shopping offerings as an added benefit to residents, able to access shopping at their convenience, with the company’s first two projects being nearby shopping centers that were anchored by “super” Target (NYSE: TGT) locations, Aase said.

While conditions on development remain tough, Aase said ASC chose to break ground at the new Georgia sites because “big development is getting closer” and will build the entry fee portion of the units, something that will be “a lot easier to finance” given the project’s scope.

“We made the decision to move forward to make it so that when capital is ready to move forward with development, we’re able to make it as easy as possible,” Aase said. “What we all know now is: the first one in is going to win, because there’s so much pent up demand now, the first one to deliver your absorption is going to be so much faster than if you wait another year to start the process.”

The company is also considering an “independent living a la carte” community with light amenities and services in partnership with a third-party assisted living provider for services in the home, but details of this concept have yet to fully solidify, Aase said, as ASC conducts further due diligence.

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