By Jack Cumming
Tales of Sam Veltheim, Resident Director
Author’s Note: This is Part 5 in a fictional account of how one CCRC might have evolved with a different cultural focus. The series is unashamedly written from a resident’s perspective.
The story so far: The saga of Sam Veltheim and Resteasy Village continues. When we last left Sam Veltheim, he had won over the residents and board to an expansion opportunity. Sam is both a resident and Executive Director of Resteasy CCRC. Now he has to work out how to finance the plan without diminishing the residents’ financial security.
To help him with imaginative financing, the board has retained Adler Hirsch, the respected New York investment banking firm, and its partner, Latisha Simpson, to come up with ideas beyond the industry’s traditionally entrenched approaches.
Latisha Simpson was particularly helpful with her response to the overleveraging challenge, i.e., too much debt — like the overleveraged mortgages leading up to the 2008 economic debacle. Then, home appraisals were kited up by friendly appraisers, allowing new homeowners to borrow more than 100% of the house’s market value. Ultimately, that overleveraging caused a massive collapse.
Financial Options
Latisha had two ideas. One was to evaluate the economic impacts of converting from not-for-profit ownership to investor funding. That would allow residents, family, and others to invest equity in the expanded Resteasy project. The other was to retain not-for-profit ownership while issuing Surplus Notes, like those used by mutual insurance companies. Surplus Notes are debt instruments that carry equity characteristics, much like junk bonds. A third possibility, related to the second idea, was to convert to a public benefit mutual corporation.
Latisha also suggested that the Board work with an accounting firm with wider financing experience than the specialized firm they had been using. She suggested a more visionary accounting firm. Then, she suggested that they speak with an architect who was noted for imagination, Gregorios Triandis, one of the world’s leading traditional-style architects. Triandis made a name for himself by designing collegiate buildings that were people-friendly while retaining the warmth of the classics.
At the next board meeting after the all-residents meeting, it was decided to retain Adler Hirsch and its partner, Latisha Simpson, to work with Sam Veltheim as advisor on all aspects of the project. Local planners quickly accepted the design as something that would give the city stature. It didn’t hurt that Sam had enlisted the help of a local consultant with close ties within the city’s planning department.
Imaginative Architecture
The architect Triandis combined Collegiate Gothic with Greek Classicism to create an inviting structure. The design avoided the off-putting industrial factory feeling so common in many modern structures. Also, the collegiate evocation seemed more like a campus of many buildings than the interconnected structure that it was. The foundational elements were an underground garage surmounted by an entertainment gathering place with shopping, as in a traditional Greek city.
Many architects are fascinated with how computer-aided design (CAD) and advances in lightweight, strong, and flexible materials have enabled construction of unusual, weird, and wonderful structures. People at large, however, are just looking for a place where they can feel at home and be their best selves. Some buildings invite you to enter, while others are just weird. Triandis leaned toward traditional notions of belonging more than modernist egoism. Like comfort food, tradition can be reassuring and make us feel safe and secure.
The community was envisioned as having many plazas and atriums with beguiling vistas that invited people to enter into the vibrant city life. At the center was a forum — a theater — conceived as a gathering place for performance, discussion, worship, and camaraderie. The concept was that of the Greek Areopagus, famed for teachers like Socrates and orators like Paul of Tarsus.
The forum was anchored by two coffee shops opposite one another across the space. Moving away from the center were localized plazas, each with communal dining and shops. These public spaces were open to the general public. Also for the general public were housing units that took advantage of the walkable complex. Parks and play yards were interspersed throughout.
Unique Security for Older Residents
The elements for the CCRC were integrated architecturally but separated and secured, with access through a guarded entry point. For the CCRC, there were peripheral apartment dwellings, common areas, and differentiated neighborhoods, framing a central area with clustered single-family dwelling units, each with an open atrium. There were both generational and care neighborhoods, enabling older people to feel they belonged where they lived.
All neighborhoods were interconnected through a secure underground structure with high ceilings and with natural light delivered through clever devices and design. The level below grade housed the wellness center, pool area, library, and other common amenities. The high ceilings and natural light gave these areas an open and inviting human dimension.
Beyond the CCRC
In Triandis’s concept, the private areas of the CCRC were mirrored elsewhere on site by public amenities open to the general public. The resulting development was designed to enhance the surrounding city much as a college campus can become a place of refuge in an urban setting.
And, indeed, as time went on, a college was added to the planning when a local college decided to relocate to the new development, opening its classes to the CCRC residents … But that came later, and we shouldn’t get ahead of our story.
The financing for the project took longer and required more discussion. Latisha Simpson’s expertise and creativity proved decisive in helping the board and the residents to think through the pluses and minuses of the options. That’s a story for another installment. For now, we leave Sam Veltheim and the residents of Resteasy Village considering the car-free community-building opportunity that Coach Koch’s gift of land has made possible for them.
(To be Continued)
Disclaimer: In this story, and in other related tales of Resteasy Village, all names, characters, and incidents are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, businesses, or circumstances should be inferred.
