Market-Rate Apartments Come To Stadium Place

ADAM BEDNAR
The Daily Record

BALTIMORE (AP) -- The $7.2 million Heritage Run at Stadium Place could just be the start for market-rate apartments for seniors on the site of old Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.

On June 25, Presbyterian Senior Living and master developer Govans Ecumenical Development Corp. celebrated the opening of the 34-unit building featuring the first market-rate apartments at Stadium Place.

"The demand for the other apartments on this site has been overwhelming, and there are a lot of folks interested in the other apartments who couldn't get in there because their incomes were above the maximum levels," said Steve Proctor, CEO of Presbyterian Senior Living.

The building features five layouts with one- and two-bedroom apartments that range between 685 square feet and 1,275 square feet. The building also features amenities such as a fitness room, catering kitchen and complimentary WiFi in the Great Room.

The development site also includes the original $50 million Stadium Place development that's home to more than 360 seniors of mixed incomes at the Green House Residencies at Stadium Place plus the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Family Center Y and an athletic field built by the Cal Ripken Sr., Foundation.

"(Heritage Run) kind of adds a new dimension to the properties here," Proctor said.

Proctor said Presbyterian Senior Living decided to go ahead with the Heritage Run project in part because a market study showed a lack of market-rate apartments for seniors in the area. In Maryland, "baby boomers," defined as people born between 1946 and 1964, represent 24 percent of the state's population. According to a 2010 report from the Maryland Baby Boomer Initiative Council, individuals over 85 years old are the fastest-growing segment of the population in Maryland, and will increase from 66,902 people in 2000 to 173,355 residents in 2030.

As a large portion of that generation ages and approaches retirement, they're expected to create greater demand for apartments geared toward senior living. A spate of new senior housing, including the first new development in the Baltimore Highlands, has been completed in recent years to meet the anticipated demand.

Presbyterian Senior Living, which has 29 facilities throughout the Mid-Atlantic, is already in a position to grow with demand. Proctor said the building is the first of several planned that will be built after generating a sufficient waiting list of people who want to move into Heritage Run. There are already 15 residents set to move into the building.

"We expect to fill up in a relatively short period of time. And our experience in other markets like this is that as people sell their homes and go through leaving homeownership, and going to being in a rental project, that sometimes takes a little bit of time," Proctor said. "So the momentum on this really kind of accelerates as we go along."

(Copyright 2013 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)