Not your father’s retirement community
According to an article in last Sunday’s Denver Post, Colorado’s 65-and-over population is expected to increase 150 percent by 2030. Local governments are currently struggling to find solutions to the problems presented by such a large increase in the number of older adults. One of the biggest challenges is housing. Where are they all going to live?
One option is “aging in place,” where seniors remain in homes they’ve lived in for years, often out in the suburbs. Another choice for the able-bodied is the “active adult” retirement community. For those needing some support services, there’s assisted living. The worst alternative is, of course, placement in a nursing home, which most seniors dread. Not only are they exorbitantly expensive, but crossing the threshold of even the best of these facilities can feel like entering Dante’s Inferno: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”
There is one thing missing from the housing choices listed above, and that is a really cool neighborhood that seniors could call their own.
What do I mean by that? Consider Denver’s trendiest locales: the Santa Fe Art District, Lower Downtown, the Highlands, Uptown, River North. These areas have exploded in popularity in the last few years, growing so much that they are now visible from space. Largely populated by a youthful crowd, these hip neighborhoods are characterized by an eclectic and electric mix of bars, restaurants, coffee shops and art galleries.
Now, some creative developer needs to build just such a neighborhood devoted to seniors. It could be located in an overlooked, underused or blighted area like the old Gates Rubber plant. The buildings would be attractively sited, their exterior architecture reminiscent of earlier times, perhaps replicating Manhattan’s lovely brownstones or the Creole cottages of the French quarter, but with interiors designed to accommodate senior needs. Residents could choose among various-sized apartments, town homes and artist’s lofts.
In addition to boutiques and microbreweries, the neighborhood would have practical businesses: a bank, post office, drug store and grocery store. Instead of streets, there would be wide paths where residents could zip around in golf carts. The public library would have a branch there, as well as Colorado Free University and Swallow Hill Music. The community would host regular music festivals, farmer’s markets, wine and beer tastings. Necessary health care and support service facilities would be on site but carefully camouflaged, preferably as bars, restaurants, coffee shops and art galleries.
Now, developers will likely be skeptical of this concept, believing that even active, able-bodied seniors simply wouldn’t be able to sustain such a place. After all, they’ll say, what makes hip, trendy neighborhoods so vibrant and exciting is the energy of youth.
But remember, GrandmaMoses picked up her first paintbrushwhen shewas in her 70s. Colonel Sanders started Kentucky Fried Chickenwhen hewas 65. Picasso pursued both his art and attractive youngwomenwell into his old age. Necessity being the mother of invention, Ben Franklin, suffering from poor vision, came up with the idea for bifocals just a fewyears before he died. And Thomas Edison remained productive and inventive until the end of his long life. Clearly, the young and the restless don’t have a monopoly on vibrant energy.
Plus, we’re talking about the baby boomers here. This youth-worshiping, “never trust anyone over 30” generation is now defiantly confronting the harsh realities of aging and dying. They may need canes, hearing aids, walkers and wheelchairs, but that’s not going to keep them from enjoying a hoppy IPA or an oaky Chardonnay. Faced with mortality, they adamantly refuse to go gentle into that good night.
Believe me, developers, there’s plenty of energy in this group. If you
build it, they will come.