Sri Nears 60 Communities With Third-party Management Growth Strategy 

Senior living operator SRI Management has added 13 communities in the last two years, and the company is keeping up the pace in 2025, according to CEO Don Bishop.

Tallahassee, Florida-based SRI manages 57 communities across 13 states, with 25 properties located in the company’s home state of Florida. In 2024, SRI added four communities and this year, it added nine communities, all under third-party management agreements.

The company’s wheelhouse continues to be in third-party management, Bishop told Senior Housing News. In fact, SRI avoids potential ownership opportunities to fully focus on improving the operating model.

“It’s been our business model for 25 years and we intentionally focus on that third-party management,” Bishop said during an interview with SHN. “We remain fully committed to what we do best in delivering high-quality operations and for our team, there aren’t any divided allegiances.”

SRI’s most recent growth push gained momentum last year and carried over into 2025, as the company’s blossoming relationships with more than 20 different ownership groups spurred expansion, Bishop said. He highlighted the company’s relationship with real estate investment trust (REIT) Ventas (NYSE: VTR), which began in 2019 and expanded this year, as exemplifying the company’s growth strategy.

“One of the things for us that has helped us prepare for more institutional investors is really the attention and the resources we place in our reporting, accounting and generally being prepared,” Bishop said. “We realized we needed to invest in how to be able to have the financials close and generate reports on-demand.”

Future growth depends on improving operations and the “ebb and flow” of the company’s many relationships with ownership groups as communities enter and exit the managed portfolio, Bishop said.

In 2025, SRI reported same-store occupancy at 90%, and Bishop noted it is moving “in the right direction,” along with ongoing improvement to net operating income margins, which have grown 20% since June 2024.

“That’s been momentum that we think will continue as more communities stabilize,” Bishop added.

While the company hasn’t set a specific number of communities to grow its management portfolio to, Bishop said he will keep seeking out new partnerships with ownership groups in need of an established operator.

‘Nimble enough and flexible enough’ to scale

Since the end of 2024, senior living investors have started returning to the transaction space, as momentum and investor sentiment for the sector improved.

To accommodate new communities into its more than 50-plus community portfolio, Bishop said SRI has remained “nimble enough and flexible enough” to respond to the needs of new capital partners entering the fold. That has resulted in SRI working with over 20 ownership partners, from private investors to public companies.

“We’ve had to be that way in order to be responsive to what our partners are looking for from their investment,” Bishop said.

Bishop said the success of any partnership relies on customer satisfaction at the community level, not on a bottom-line financial statement. Without needing to seek out new capital partners, Bishop sees the current moment as an opportunity to attract future investors who are seeking tested operators to manage new or recently acquired properties.

“We can’t lose sight of that focus and our success long-term is only as good as the experiences we’re creating and we never want to lose that focus,” Bishop said. “There’s a ton of money flowing into the space and there’s a whole new level of complexity to it.”

Bishop said the company’s integration team ensures success in transitioning a newly added property to the SRI fold. This includes human resources (HR) leaders who dissuade concerns or answer questions for new employees unfamiliar with the SRI banner or operating model. The other priority is making sure residents know about the management change while also maintaining care delivery and basic community functions.

“In a transition, you need the priorities, the core needs of a community from day one,” Bishop said. “If you prioritize things like care or dining from day one, you’re going to get a better result.”

Finding balance, priorities in seeking new growth

Third-party management-focused senior living operators must get more creative in today’s senior living operating environment or risk falling behind and losing resident satisfaction, Bishop said.

To prepare for a new community entering the portfolio, Bishop said SRI leadership teams hire necessary staff prior to the acquisition to take a proactive approach to staffing, rather than waiting and risking the loss of new staff to competitors.

That means the company prepares a transition plan two months in advance to usher in a smooth takeover, Bishop said. In thinking about future growth, Bishop said SRI will continue to look at opportunities in the Midwest, Southeastern U.S., or further afield if an attractive opportunity comes across his desk, he added.

“We’re approaching our scalability holistically,” Bishop said. “That way we can have stability and momentum to manage new growth and maintain quality operations at our existing communities.”

The company’s sweet spot for communities ranging from 120 to 200 units, depending on market location and as small as 50 units,” Bishop said. If a community is distressed, SRI drafts a turnaround plan to establish a rapid response to glaring issues in operations. As an example, Bishop said SRI typically holds a property with ownership for 10 to 15 years to align the company’s vision with ownership expectations.

“That way we get to know the property and understand the identity and what the owner’s vision is,” Bishop said. “We do anticipate adding more communities in the next six months to wrap up 2025.”

Bishop said the company could seek new growth in the Southeast, Midwest and into northern Virginia, while also expanding to new markets and growing regional density across other areas.

Outside of new growth, solving staffing challenges will continue to be a priority for SRI in 2025, Bishop said, noting that conditions on labor availability and hiring have improved. Agency use continues to trend down and staffing at the community level has stabilized.

Another area where Bishop sees headwinds brewing is affordability of senior living more broadly, regardless of asset type, despite optimism around demographic shifts skewing older as Baby Boomers enter the fold and drive demand.

“We don’t have enough new supply and as an industry we’ve been trying to catch up on rates but at a certain point, a large portion of that demand is going to have a hard time affording the product,” Bishop said. “Something’s going to be different even if the needs of our residents aren’t going to change.”

The post SRI Nears 60 Communities With Third-Party Management Growth Strategy  appeared first on Senior Housing News.