New Tiffin retirement community to open next year

Echoing retirement communities it has developed in Marion, Ames, Altoona, Grimes and West Des Moines since 2011, a Kansas-based senior living developer is planning another new one in Iowa — this one in the state’s fastest growing city of Tiffin.

Scenic Development Retirement Community Developers by August 2025 aim to debut a $40 million “homelike” continuing care retirement complex in the Johnson County city of 5,800 — including 40 skilled nursing beds, 46 independent living apartments and 34 assisted living apartments, according to a certificate of need application the state approved earlier this year.

Independent and assistant living residents will have the option of one- or two-bedroom apartments in two-story buildings with underground parking. All three neighborhoods — independent living, assisted living and skilled nursing — will share a 13,000-square-foot “Village Center” common area featuring a beauty and barbershop, movie theater, chapel, laundry room and community space.

“Each neighborhood will be residential in style, promoting a homelike atmosphere,” the application stated, promising open, residential-style kitchens; family and historic community photos on the walls; sofas and easy chairs; patios; and walking trails.

“There will be no call lights or alarms,” ​​according to the application. “Staff will carry pagers to receive calls from residents.”

The facility is proposed for near the Highway 6 and Interstate 80 interchanges with Interstate 380. Developers justified the need for “the first and only facility in Tiffin to offer a full continuum of care on one campus” by pointing to the city’s vast growth over the past decade and prediction its population will double between 2020 and 2030.

“Despite the rapid population growth, including a steady increase in the number of older persons, the availability of nursing facility beds — and more specifically, nursing facility beds located in a continuing care campus — has not kept pace,” the application states.

Aging population

Statewide, Iowa’s population has been aging and is expected to keep doing so — with the share of Iowans 65 and older increasing from 15 percent in 1990 to 18 percent in 2020 to a projected 21 percent in 2050, according to state data.

More than 21,300 Iowans 65 or older in 2021 lived in group quarters — like nursing facilities, which had topped 400 statewide for two decades until 2023, when Iowa’s nursing facility count dipped to 392, according to the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services.

Johnson County is the second-fastest growing county in Iowa — reporting a 17 percent population increase between 2010 and 2020. That has increased its long-term-care bed shortage to second highest in Iowa, behind only Polk County, according to the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing.

That department’s most recent calculation of long-term-care bed needs across all 99 counties indicates Johnson will require nearly 1,000 additional beds by 2028 to meet the demand, as will neighboring Linn County.

Research that the Scenic Development group commissioned in deciding to move ahead with its Tiffin proposal identified a 10-ZIP Code “primary service area” that uses the I-80 and I-380 interchange, determining its population of residents 75 and older will increase 24 percent between 2023 and 2028.

The development “proposes to meet the need for additional nursing facility beds in Johnson County and the surrounding area by constructing a 40-bed, neighborhood-model nursing facility as a part of its new continuing care retirement community,” Scenic Development said in its certificate of need application.

The plan “allows the resident to transition from independent living to assisted living or skilled nursing if and when the need arises. Skilled nursing also allows residents to recover, rehabilitate, and safely return to their independent or assisted living apartments following surgeries or injuries.”

Tiffin proposal

Elaborating on project details for Tiffin — similar to their existing care communities in Iowa — developers said independent living apartments best suit residents able to live on their own with minimal support services. Assisted living apartments serve those who need some help with daily life but are otherwise self-sufficient; and skilled-nursing units cater to individuals needing round-the-clock nursing care.

The 40 skilled-nursing beds will be subdivided into three sub-neighborhoods — two each featuring 14 units with 16 beds and a third offering eight larger rehabilitation suites.

“The skilled nursing neighborhood will be approximately 29,515 square feet,” according to the project proposal. “Rooms facing the courtyard will have patios.”

The goal is to have construction mostly wrapped by July 2025, with residents moving in by August — a timeline squaring with an explosion of health care-related growth a few miles away in North Liberty. Both the University of Iowa’s new $525.6 million hospital and Steindler Orthopedic’s new $29.3 million ambulatory surgery center are scheduled to open there in 2025.

With the flood of residents and visitors to the Corridor have come a growing list of new businesses — from entertainment venues like Pinseekers Golf to dining and options like Starbucks and Chipotle.

“An amenity that our city lacks is housing, specifically for aging adults,” Tiffin City Administrator Doug Boldt wrote in a letter to the state supporting the proposed retirement community. “Because of the immediate need for beds in our county and because Scenic Development has shown that they can perform and operate at a high standard, it is my recommendation that the State of Iowa grant them the 40 licensed beds that they are requesting.”

The application proposes a daily rate for the skilled-nursing community in Tiffin of $305 to $365 a day. The development group’s Terrace Glen Village in Marion charges $330 to $415 a day for its health care rooms; $5,254 to $6,145 a month for its assisted living apartments; and $3,645 to $4,759 a month for its independent units — depending on the number of beds and bathrooms.

An Iowa-based bank, according to the application, conditionally approved $27.7 million in financing for the construction of the facility, which aims to hire a local doctor as the campus’ medical director and enter into transfer agreements with local hospitals.

A full-time equivalent of more than 35 workers will be needed to staff the skilled-nursing portion of the facility, and the developers said they don’t think that will be a problem.

“Based on current staffing positions at Scenic Development’s sister facilities in central Iowa, (the Tiffin facility) does not anticipate difficulty in recruiting staff for the facility,” according to the application. “While recruiting good employees can sometimes be a challenge, we have been successful in every market we are in.”

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