Viva Senior Living Doubles Management Portfolio, Expanding Footprint To 14 States

Viva Senior Living has doubled its management portfolio in the last 12 months and has expanded its operating presence to 14 states.

In 2025, Norwood, New Jersey-based Viva added 17 communities to its management portfolio and now oversees 40 senior living properties with three communities under development and two future projects in the pre-development phase. 

In November, Viva officially established a new capital relationship with Stacked Stone Ventures and Praxis Capital for management of a seven-property senior living portfolio in Missouri valued at $71 million. The recent additions in Missouri to Viva’s management portfolio adds a cluster of assisted living and memory care communities in the Show Me State, according to Chief Operating Officer Christopher Metternich. 

Stacked Stone President Kent Eikanas told SHN the relationship with Viva formed due to the company’s “operational focus on residents,” along with Viva’s clinical care capacity and lifestyle programming that “just stood out” from a crowded field of potential management suitors.

Viva will remain “very selective” in choosing future capital partners, commenting on the new Stacked Stone-Praxis relationship as being “a relationship of synergy” that grew out of the investors’ “actually caring about clinical care,” Metternich said.

“That’s refreshing and that’s really the major reason why we partnered with Stacked Stone,” Metternich told SHN.

The Viva-Stacked Stone partnership is made stronger through Viva’s focus on assisted living and memory care operations, fitting into Stacked Stone’s diversified portfolio across acuity levels. The Missouri communities are “newer, Class A real estate” properties with many communities having long-tenured staff and a history of routine building maintenance and cleanliness, Metternich said.

“This is a we thing, not a me thing,” Metternich said. “The value is in the care models and what goes on inside our buildings.”

The Missouri communities fit well within Viva’s existing geography as an operator alongside its presence in Tennessee and Indiana. This will allow Viva to create “regional teams” to support existing Viva properties once the new communities are fully integrated into its operating platform.

The Viva leadership team envisions creating “super regional administrators” and relying on leadership development of standout local leadership, instead of relying solely on leadership periodically visiting communities.

“We want to develop talent from the inside out to give local talent room to grow,” Metternich added.

All existing employees at the communities will remain in place, and now Viva is making building upgrades to support necessary IT and clinical infrastructure with upgrades to Wi-Fi capabilities to support the multiple technology platforms its operating model relies on. This emphasis on tech infrastructure has been “one of the largest pieces” to integrating new properties into Viva’s orbit, moving communities reliant on paper records to digital.

Going forward, Viva intends to rely on its clinical operations expertise to meet the incoming needs of older adults today that is “much more acuity based” compared to the last decade, Metternich noted. Viva is tightening policies and procedures, ensuring the company has the right partnerships with pharmacy, rehab and hospice partners in its markets to handle an acuity-based senior living environment.

As the company has scaled its management platform, Viva now relies on multiple procurement and general purchasing organizations (GPO) to reap cost savings where possible in purchasing food, supplies and equipment. To avoid staffing growing pains, Viva offers employees benefits through the Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangement (ICHRA) model that allows it to pay base insurance premiums while employees choose plans on an exchange, trading up or down based on age, need and preferred carriers.

In accepting new ideas from operations staff, Metternich said Viva leadership maintains an “ear to the ground” approach, taking feedback from community leaders to help improve operations.

On future growth, Metternich said Viva was “actively looking” to build out its presence in Indiana further with an existing capital partner with additional opportunities possible in Missouri and “adjacent markets.”

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