Retire to a 'five-star resort'
Amica offers aging boomers pub, putting green, pedicures in 'antithesis of nursing home'
June 02, 2008
Meredith Macleod
The Hamilton Spectator
This retirement home is certainly putting a new shine on the golden years.
The recently opened Amica in Dundas, on Hatt Street, offers a fine-dining menu, concierge service, a pool, fitness room, a pub and games room, massage, manicures and pedicures, a large theatre, wireless Internet lounge and even a woodworking shop and kiln.
The furnishings and artwork are stylish and contemporary. In fact, the home's entryway looks very much like the lobby of a sleek hotel.
And a kitchen and dining room available for residents, who want to host dinners for guests or bake a batch of cookies, are worthy of a magazine spread.
It's part of a growing demand by boomers and seniors who want more out of life and aren't afraid to pay for it, said Roy Oostergo, vice-president of business development for Amica Mature Lifestyle.
"We've tried to create a business model based on a hospitality paradigm, rather than an institutional or health-care paradigm."
The posted menu this day illustrates the difference.
Dinner is cream of leek soup or roasted beet salad to start, a veal cutlet with mushroom sauce or sesame ginger chicken, and bread and butter pudding with whisky sauce.
A full bar list is available with dinner, or in the Crooks Hollow pub next door.
The games room features a pool table, shuffleboard and a baby grand piano. A sun room on the third floor overlooks a rooftop patio and a putting green down below.
Throughout the building, homage is paid to the history of Dundas. The six-storey structure is built on the site of the Bertram foundry, a landmark in the town.
Not surprisingly, none of this comes cheap.
Independent living suites range in price from $2,800 a month for a studio to $4,800 for a two-bedroom, two-bath; second occupants cost an additional $600.
Assisted living suites, with nursing, bathing, additional meals, laundry and housekeeping services, cost about $1,000 more a month.
Though the age range is typical of a seniors home -- 76 to 101 -- Susan Gerard, vice-president of marketing and communications for Amica, says it's "the total antithesis of a nursing home."
The best analogy, she says, is imagining "a cross between a cruise ship and a five-star resort."
There are 16 Amica retirement homes in British Columbia and Ontario, and nine in development.
The company was seriously looking at expansion into the United States, but current economic conditions will stall that for now, said Oostergo.
He expects two or three new projects will begin in the next year. The company will eye another location in the Hamilton/Burlington area once the Dundas home is at capacity, he said.
Brian Townend, general manager of the Amica at Dundas, predicts the 136 units will be full in about 18 months.
There are about 65 residents now and 30 on a waiting list trying to sell their houses.
The first residents moved in at the beginning of March. The official grand opening is Friday.
The Vancouver-based Amica, founded in 1995 by then-25-year-old real estate executive Samir Manji, went public in 1997.
The company was drawn to Dundas's bustling downtown and its natural amenities, says Oostergo.
Amica owns a 17 per cent equity interest in the building. It has partnered with the developers behind a quartet of geared to seniors condos across the street.
In addition to equity interests, the company generates revenue by charging property management fees through long-term leases on its residences.
With more than 10 million Canadians now aged 50-plus, and a growing demand for senior-geared living, analysts have praised Amica's model.
For 2007, the company reported cash flow of $8.6 million, which was up 41 per cent, and earnings (before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of about $2.1 million, up from break-even results the year before.
But in the fallout of the subprime meltdown, share prices have taken a battering, falling from a high of $12.35 last July to a close of $6.84 on Friday.