Developer of senior housing buys big tract near Zionsville

A local player in the red-hot senior housing business has scooped up a large tract of land near Zionsville for future development.

Baptist Homes of Indiana Inc., which owns the 150-acre Hoosier Village seniors complex near 96th Street and Zionsville Road, closed Sept. 17 on 159 acres that encircle the Golf Club of Indiana.

The tract just southwest of Interstate 65 and State Road 334 had been owned by a unit of Huntington Bank, which took the property back from previous owner Fellowship Investments. Huntington listed the property in May with Colliers International broker Ross Reller for $1.75 million.

In August, Huntington told Reller to drop the price and find a cash buyer who could close on the property prior to Sept. 30. Reller wouldn’t disclose the final terms of the deal.

Baptist Homes had previously let expire an option it had to buy property near the Legacy, a 509-acre master planned community being developed by Pittman Partners and other developers southeast of 146th Street and Hazel Dell Parkway.

The commercial real estate market has tanked since then, and prices dropped, opening up an opportunity for Baptist Homes to scoop up the property adjacent to the golf course.

“It’s like beachfront property,” Reller said. “You’ve got the benefit of views of a number of different holes of the course without the obligation to operate the golf course.”

Officials from Baptist Homes weren’t available to comment on their plans for the property, but Reller and an attorney for the company didn’t anticipate the land being developed immediately.

Attorney Douglas Byrum said his client still has property to develop adjacent to Hoosier Village. Hoosier Village is one of three so-called continuing care retirement communities Baptist Homes owns in Indiana. The properties contain a range of housing and care options for seniors. The others are The Towne House in Fort Wayne and Four Seasons in Columbus. It also owns two HUD-subsidized apartment communities for seniors—The Villas in Columbus and Crawford Manor, a 100-unit complex within Hoosier Village.

Byrum said his client owns or is looking at ground in other parts of the state to expand its presence in the senior housing market, which Reller predicted will be one of the most active sectors in real estate over the next few decades.

According to a story titled “Prime time for seniors housing” that appeared Sept. 22 on  GlobeSt.com, a news and resource website for the commercial real estate industry, by 2014 there will be 85.3 million Americans 55 and older. The percentage of the U.S. population represented by that demographic will grow to 26 percent by 2014, up from 21 percent in 2000.

The story quoted estimates from Dallas-based Integra Realty Services that the growing seniors population will require 94,000 new seniors housing units per year between 2010 and 2030. The total of 1.9 million units built in that time would represent a 60-percent increase in supply.

IBJ Real Estate Weekly reported Sept. 14 plans for the $19.5 million first phase of Hamilton Trace of Fishers, a senior community to be built by Bloomington-based CarDon & Associates at 116th Street and Cumberland Road. That project, with 30 apartments and a 108-bed skilled care facility, will join another new seniors project in Fishers. American Seniors Communities plans to open Allisonville Meadows, a 171-bed facility at 10312 Allisonville Road, by the end of October.