Developers use ‘active adult’ tag

With baby boomers growing older, developers are looking to market to them.

WASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTON — Peter Stegner, a fit, white-haired man with a gift for chatter, is jogging down a tranquil road, listening to an iPod loaded with tunes by James Brown and the Beach Boys.

After he runs three or four miles, he’ll be off to happy hour: One day it’s on his enclosed balcony overlooking the Potomac River, the next at an Italian bistro in his gated neighborhood. It’s beer in the summer, a Scotch in chillier times.

Stegner, 68, lives at Leisure World of Virginia, an “active adult community” for the 55-plus set in suburban Loudoun County, Va. It is one of about 40 such communities in the Washington area — one of the hottest markets for this type of housing outside the Sun Belt.

“We knew about them in Florida,” said his wife, Kathryn Stegner, 64. “But I don’t think we knew they were here. I love it.”

As the country ages — the first wave of baby boomers turns 61 this year — developers are marketing active adult communities not only for the Lawrence Welk-Mitch Miller generation but also for the Beatles-Rolling Stones-James Brown set. (Could Eminem and Dr. Dre be far behind?)

Gone from the lexicon are the words senior and retirement, which conjure images of getting old. In are the marketing phrases country club living, active and lifestyles. One developer even plans yoga studios and meditation gardens in its new community.

“A lot of the advertising looks less staid than it used to be,” said Margaret Wylde, president of the ProMatura Group in Oxford, Miss., a research firm specializing in the 50-plus market. “There’s less concentration on the silver-hair-fox couple and more on the lifestyles and opportunities that are available in these communities.”

By the end of the decade, close to a quarter of the U.S. population will be 55 or older. More builders see opportunities to develop active adult communities, particularly in outer suburbs, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Having hospitals nearby is a big plus.

Much of the optimism is fueled by baby boomers. Born between 1946 and 1964, they number nearly 80 million. And they’ve started trickling into the active adult communities.

Well over 50 percent of the baby boomers are older than 50 already, and by 2030, baby boomers will be 66 to 84 — 20 percent of the population, according to a study by the insurance company MetLife.

“I see tremendous opportunity,” said Bill Slenker, who owns suburban Central Parke Communities, which has built such developments in Maryland, Virginia and Delaware. “It’s not stopping; the train’s out of the station. ... They are turning 55 10,000 times a day.”

Most won’t move into an age-segregated community. In fact, fewer than 11 percent will move at all, according to AARP, the seniors group. Brookings Institution demographer William Frey said the figure will be even lower.

“People don’t move much when they’re older, even baby boomers,” Frey said.

The Rev. John Siberski, a Georgetown University associate professor specializing in geriatric psychiatry, has some thoughts about why people might avoid age-restricted communities, where they must deal with “the process of aging in a very concentrated form.”

“Some don’t like being treated as old. There are people who would really like to avoid reminders of being elderly.”

However, Frey said, there are some “yuppie elderly,” empty nesters with expendable income, who want the lifestyle — and can afford it.

The Stegners — he was an advertising sales management executive; she worked for an investment firm — paid about $400,000 for a two-bedroom condominium and dish out about $500 a month in condo fees.

In this fitness-obsessed, vitamin-popping, Botox-injecting society, builders are outfitting developments for seniors with amenities often associated with country clubs.

At Leisure World of Virginia, which has about 1,500 residents and plans for as many as 2,700 someday, the two-story clubhouse has an indoor pool, a library with computers, a bank branch and a restaurant. There are pool tables, a workout room and tennis courts. There are studios for ceramics, woodworking and art.

“You can spend the day here if you want,” Patrick Rhodes Jr., project manager of the development, said as he walked through the clubhouse. “You don’t have to retire in Florida or go west. You can have everything here and stay close to family and friends.”

Susan Frank, 65, who moved in after 40 years in a house, gushed about her new lifestyle.

“I call this my docked cruise ship,” she said. “I walk out the front door and I have a state-of-the-art fitness center. I have an indoor pool. I’m extremely active physically.”

Builders predict more changes to satisfy the baby boomers.

Dorothy Harper, president of Providence of Brookfield Homes in Fairfax County, Va., which builds active adult communities, said she plans a yoga studio, a meditation garden and a climbing wall at one of her projects, in Winchester, Va.

“There’s a lot of change, a move away from generic crafts and a move toward art studios. There’s a move away from your typical woodshop. People are doing more metalwork.”

She also said there could come a time when some active adult communities remove the age restriction but still target advertising toward the 55-plus. That would allow grown children to return home after college for a while.

Whereas developers once concentrated senior-oriented communities in Florida, Arizona and California, they have shifted efforts away from the Sun Belt to attract people who want to remain closer to family, friends, community and doctors, industry experts said.

Some jurisdictions have enthusiastically welcomed these communities, reasoning that they don’t put a drain on schools, law enforcement, roads and other certain local services.