Campus communities draw retirees
By Adam Geller
Associated Press
When Jim Davis graduated from Pennsylvania State University, he figured he was leaving for good. But more than 50 years later, he's back, this time for retirement.
Carolyn Kaster • Associated Press
"They all think we were crazy for coming back up here," Davis said, of the friends he and his wife, Jo Anne, left behind in their first retirement destination, a gated subdivision built around a golf course in North Carolina. "But it was the best decision we ever made."
Jim Davis worked out in an exercise room at the Village at Penn State, a retirement community built within walking distance of his alma mater, Penn State. The State College, Pa., campus is one of a growing number of sites for retirement communities nationwide.
The couple's move to State College, Pa., two years ago makes them part of a small but fast-growing group of seniors enticed back to the alma mater by a new generation of retirement communities opening on or near college campuses.
While developers have been building such projects for several years, universities and colleges are playing an increasing role, seeking new sources of revenue and a way to cement ties with alumni.
Retirees — most of them graduates of the schools, former faculty or people who already lived nearby — are drawn by the activities in college towns, the chance to continue learning and life alongside like-minded adults.
"There are a number of people who look for something other than a condo on the fifth green and a warm climate," said Leon Pastalan, director of the National Center on Housing and Living Arrangements for Older Adults at the University of Michigan. "They're looking for something more stimulating and that's what a college campus can provide."
The first college retirement communities opened about 20 years ago, but the idea has spread in the last three or four years, Pastalan said. There are at least 50 such developments near campuses around the country, from those near large schools like Duke University and the University of Michigan, to smaller schools like Lasell College in Newton, Mass.
About 10 to 15 of these developments are in the planning stages, Pastalan said.
Some of the projects are condominium developments. Others are so-called continuing care retirement communities — combining apartments with assisted living and nursing home facilities, designed to accommodate people from early retirement through their later years.
That combined offering appealed to Jim and Jo Anne Davis — he's 74, she's 73 — who were concerned about finding a way to retire without burdening their adult children with future elder care responsibilities.
An article in an alumni magazine about The Village at Penn State, then in construction, drew them to campus for a visit. They quickly signed up, moving into a two-bedroom apartment with a view of the school's football stadium and nearby Mount Nittany.
They've settled into a lifestyle more active than before they retired, Jo Anne Davis said. The couple attend football games and campus performances. She is active in onsite activities like a women's crafts group, and twice weekly water aerobics classes at the university swimming pool.
Living in the developments does not come cheap.
At Penn State, the Davises paid about $200,000 for the right to live in the Penn State development for as long as they choose, as well as a monthly fee of about $2,600. That entitles them to nursing and assisting living care when and if they need it. If they move out within the first four years, they get a limited portion of their investment back. Another option, requiring a larger initial payment of about $285,000, returns 90 percent of that amount to residents or their estate on move out.
