Bridgewood Property Company Builds Regional Scale in Senior Living
Bridgewood Property Company has quietly become a regional force in senior living with a “steady as she goes” approach to development and operations.
The Houston-based company has developed 34 communities since its founding including The Village of The Heights. Founded by Jim Gray its current portfolio now consists of 22 properties in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, totaling 2,600 independent living, assisted living and memory care units, which are managed by Bridgewood’s in-house operator, Retirement Center Management (RCM).
Gray is “baffled” by the pace at which some senior living markets are being flooded with product and is committed to Bridgewood’s careful approach — still, the company has ramped up in recent years, starting to grow through acquisition for the first time.
“We don’t want to be the biggest operator,” Gray said. “We just want to be the best.”
Gray got his start in real estate at Trammell Crow Company, a legendary Dallas-based real estate brokerage and developer that is now a subsidiary of CBRE, the largest real estate services and investment firm in the world.
Gray left Trammell Crow in 1997 to form Cypress Senior Living, focusing strictly on independent living, and ultimately built a portfolio of 2,250 units across the Midwest and Southeast before selling Cypress to Chartwell Retirement Residences (TSX: CSH-UN), Canada’s largest senior housing operator, in 2006.
Building scale, one community at a time
Gray regrouped by forming Bridgewood and RCM, focusing on higher-end, ground-up developments across the care continuum in urban infill markets with dislocations in supply-demand balance. The typical scale of a Bridgewood community is around 200 units.
The company undergoes a lengthy site selection and entitlement process, Gray told Senior Housing News. “We build one community at a time,” he said. “There is a lot of product being built in some markets, which is baffling to me.”
Development accounts for the majority of Bridgewood’s portfolio, but the company has added acquisition to its strategy in recent years and has added five communities in the past three years through purchases.
“We look for newer buildings in submarkets with lease or operational issues, where the values are more attractive,” Gray said.
Bridgewood’s newest development, The Village of Southampton, offers high-rise luxury senior living in the iconic Southampton neighborhood of West University in Houston. The Village location is blocks from the Rice Village shopping and dining district, Rice University and the Texas Medical Center. The 203-unit continuing care community is scheduled to open Spring 2020 with 50% of the independent living units already pre-leased.
Bridgewood Property Company co-developed The Village at The Triangle, a CCRC in Austin, Texas. The Village at the Triangle was awarded “Best CCRC Design” in the 2018 Senior Housing News Architecture and Design Awards.
A CCRC is a continuing care retirement community, or multi-level care facility, which provides residents with a lifetime continuum of care. They assure the care recipient independent living as long as possible, and provide for nursing assistance if or when it is needed.
