Trilogy woos empty nesters with upscale, downsized homes
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Richard Obernesser says it himself: He couldn't have better clients than Carol and Ron McCray if he'd dreamed them up himself.
These two 58-year-olds like to stay active. Besides socializing with longtime friends, the McCrays golf, hike, swim. She's employed as a Bellevue YMCA fitness instructor and he as a marine contractor.
"I'm not getting older, I'm getting better. That's how I think of it," says Carol McCray, grandmother of three.
She predicts life will get even better in late summer, when she and her husband become two of the first residents of what Obernesser says is Western Washington's first master-planned, single-family-home community designed by and for "active adults." That's folks age 55 to 74.
"It's a longtime dream come true," says McCray.
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The community being built just northeast of Lake Sammamish is called Trilogy at Redmond Ridge. Obernesser is Washington vice president for its developer, Shea Homes for Active Adults.
"They're our target customers," says Obernesser of the McCrays, "the kind of folks where if you're sitting next to them at a party or some event, you'd find them extremely interesting. They're physically active and intellectually curious."
In other words, not the stereotypical consumers of senior housing: retirees chasing the sun or those in need of assisted living.
As the baby boom approaches retirement, those stereotypes are ripe for change.
Challenging stereotype
Instead of targeting retirees, why not target those who are five or 10 years from getting the gold watch? Instead of assuming downsizers all want condos, why not offer a variety of ramblers? And instead of assuming that retirement means the Sunbelt, why not offer the amenities associated with an Arizona or California adult enclave here?
That's what the Arizona-based Shea, America's largest privately held home developer, is doing.
Groundbreaking has started on what will be 1,500 homes set among 1,000 forested acres of an old tree farm. Nearly two-thirds of that land will either remain undisturbed or be part of Trilogy's 18-hole golf course. There will also be 12 miles of hiking trails and a 30,000-square-foot clubhouse, with indoor swimming pool, running track and spa.
Also on the drawing boards is a golf club with restaurant and banquet facilities, plus a pro shop.
The first homes will be finished this summer. Prices start in the high $230,000s for a 1,150-square-foot rambler with two bedrooms, a great room (in lieu of separate living and family rooms) and two-car garage. They top out at $750,000 for 3,300 square feet of luxury adjacent to the golf course. Lot sizes range from 3,900 to 6,750 square feet. Location, size and optional extras all factor in the home pricing.
Obernesser says 23 homes have been sold, even though the grand opening won't be until May, when 13 furnished models are completed. Buyers will be able to choose from 17 floor plans (no undeveloped lots will be available for those who might prefer to build their own house).
Right age, income
The Puget Sound area has seen other adult communities developed, among them Port Ludlow on the Olympic Peninsula, Panorama City near Olympia and Providence Point, a large condominium community on the Issaquah Plateau.
What sets Trilogy at Redmond Ridge apart is its target demographic and its details.
Obernesser says Shea looked at several cities, including Denver and Dallas, before settling on the Seattle area for one of its active-adult communities. (Another will soon be built near Palm Springs, Calif.)
Why here?
"There's an intense loyalty to this area, and we knew that a lot of people would prefer to stay in Seattle," he says.
Also important: Baby boomers are 31 percent of the area's 2.6 million population — one of the highest concentrations of any metropolitan area — and they, plus people in their late 50s and 60s, are a large enough group to fill Trilogy. That's even if a sizeable percentage of that age group doesn't desire a community where no resident can be younger than 18 and at least one member of each household must be 55 or older.
Additionally, many of this region's mature adults are well-educated, well-traveled and well-off — Trilogy's target population.
"When people say they're looking for an active-adult community, what they're actually looking for is a place to live out their lifestyles," says Eric Snider, Shea's vice president of sales and marketing.
"People are really looking at this stage of their life as a time to go out and do all those things they haven't done during their work careers. And baby boomers are really looking for those kinds of activities where they can explore their mind and spirit."
Snider anticipates 40 percent of Trilogy's residents will be working full time and another 10 percent will be part-timers. By comparison, Snider says Sunbelt senior communities are made up of 80 percent retirees and 20 percent employed.
Many senior communities are gated and offer graduated levels of care, including nursing-home beds. By design, Trilogy will do neither, or as Obernesser explains, "We're not assisted living. We're not senior housing. We're catering to people who are working or who otherwise have an active lifestyle."
Potential buyers guided design
That philosophy has attracted potential buyers — 3,000 of whom answered a 225-question survey about their housing preferences and lifestyles.
Overwhelmingly they said they wanted to remain in this area, preferably on the Eastside. They wanted a smaller, one-level home in a planned community. They wanted such amenities as a golf course and walking trails, but they also indicated they wanted the environment protected.
Several hundred respondents also took part in 32 design-review sessions, helping Shea fine-tune the project.
Lily McDaniel was a respondent. Divorced and a grandmother, she has lived in the same large Bellevue house for 22 years, watching the neighborhood change. It's now young families. "I'm 62 and I don't have that much in common with the younger couples, and this community will offer this," McDaniel says.
Project architect Brian Cloward of Seattle's Mithun Partners says the people who participated in the sessions were clear about what they wanted, and that in turn drove his designs. Because homes with stairs were not highly sought, some 85 percent of the housing will be ramblers. (There will be some two-story homes and eventually some attached homes.)
Because potential owners wanted durable, low-maintenance homes, he chose a cementlike siding product called Hardiplank. To give them the storage space they craved, Cloward enlarged the closets and provided generous, easy to reach attic space.
And there's considerable flexibility in the floor plans and finishes, allowing buyers to custom-tailor spaces to fit their needs
All this has impressed Bill Kreager, one of Mithun's principal architects. "Many major builders have come here and fallen on their knees and left," he says. "Shea has come in and really listened and done their homework. I think they're going be a tremendous success."
So does Suzanne Britsch. As president of Real Vision Research, she has consulted for many Northwest builders, but never for Shea.
"I'm so impressed with the company itself," she says. "Their floor plans are wonderful. And they're putting in the clubhouse and the community center now. Most of our master-planned communities don't put in that kind of infrastructure for five years, until the community can support it. I think that's going to make a big difference in sales."
Still, the planned community hasn't been without controversy. All of Redmond Ridge (which has been slated since the mid-1990s to include much more housing than just Trilogy) has been the focus of community activists concerned that adding what amounts to a new city will destroy the area's rural character. Years of court fights ensued.
Lisa Lee, King County Urban Planned Development coordinator, says Trilogy is on safe ground because it's completed the permit process. "The law is very clear that once a permit is approved and vested, it may go ahead, regardless of whether land-use designations or decisions change on the property."
That makes Carol McCray happy. Having raised two children, she and her husband, Ron, felt ready to downsize from their 3,100-square-foot home near Lake Sammamish. Moving to their new 2,100-square-foot home next to the golf course gives them exactly what they want, she says. Best of all, it's just seven minutes away from their grandchildren in Duvall.
"We've met so many people who've bought there (Trilogy)," says McCray. "We're really looking forward to being neighbors."
Elizabeth Rhodes can be reached at erhodes@seattletimes.com.