Horizon House’s $600m Bond Financing Paves Way For 33-story Senior Living Tower 

Nonprofit Horizon House will nearly double its capacity to serve seniors in Seattle using proceeds from Ziegler’s largest-ever senior living financing.

The single-site continuing care retirement community’s (CCRC) is using the nearly $600 million in bonds it obtained with Ziegler to replace a 51-unit wing that was built in 1983 with a new 202-unit, 33-story building.

The project is slated to open in 2029, according to Horizon House CEO Erica Thrash-Sall. The project nearly doubles the size of the campus and adds room for about 300 more residents, bringing its total unit count to 620. More residents will help the operator’s margins and revenue, and that financial stability will allow Horizon House to maintain our lower cost units and monthly services fees in its central and east towers.

The operator first announced the project in 2022 and spent the last three years relocating residents around the community to make way for the project.

“It is a very complicated project because of the site,” Thrash-Sall told Senior Housing News. “Everything is interconnected. The west tower will also be connected, but connected in a way that we haven’t had before.”

Horizon House’s other existing towers are 19 stories high. With its new tower, Horizon House seeks to have more connection points between all of the buildings that make up its campus.

The organization’s master plan for the project includes increasing the size of lobby, mail room and dining room, along with expanding its bistro, to accommodate the new residents, aesthetic upgrades to bring it up to a more modern feel, updates to the community’s fire system and added energy efficiency throughout the campus.

“We don’t want a campus that has disparity,” Thrash-Sall said. “We’ve been forward thinking and ensuring that there’s this equitable experience.” 

The project has not gone without its challenges. Horizon House had previously halted admissions in the tower as construction crews worked to tear it down. Although the operator relocated all of the residents living in the building to other units, the admissions freeze meant fewer dollars coming in. Relocating residents was its own challenge given that the operator had to customize certain dwellings to their tastes.

“It was not an easy thing to announce to them,” she said. “It was important for us to treat our residents well. This is a huge sacrifice for them, they’re leaving their home what they thought was going to be their forever home.”

Horizon House prepared itself to receive the funding in multiple ways, though the primary way it built up its balance sheet was from stopping the sale of refundable entrance fee contracts.

Horizon House’s name recognition as a CCRC in downtown Seattle has helped create buzz. Pre-sales for the new project are already at 70%.

“This project was built conservatively from a financial standpoint,” she added.

The building will officially be turned over to the general contractor on Dec. 15, and deconstruction of the existing tower is slated to take eight months to complete due to its proximity to the rest of the campus.

Once the new tower is completed, Thrash-Sall hopes it will prove to the industry that nonprofit single site operations can have alternatives to affiliating.

“We really hope to be a beacon, so that people at least have another alternative, and that boards can look at risk a little differently,” Thrash-Sall said. “If they do feel like being a single site is their superpower, like we feel it’s ours, they can feel confident in being able to get the financing they need to continue operating in a way that’s been authentic for them.”

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