Union Village to be built for active seniors

When Craig Johnson started in the senior living industry 25 years ago, he and business partner David Baker asked themselves if they’d like to retire in one of their senior living facilities. Both said no.

“We both agreed that we’d like to retire in Disneyland in an apartment on Main Street over retail so we could either be alone or go out and enjoy our surroundings,” Johnson said. “We wanted to be in a place where we were not limited by what we could do within our building.”

Johnson, Baker and Gary Holland created the idea in 2010 for Union Village, a $1.2 billion, 170-acre planned community located at the northeast corner of U.S. Highway 95 at Galleria Drive and Russell Road.

“Twenty years ago senior living facilities were built in the back part of town and that’s really an old way of looking at things,” Johnson said. “Seniors are different today and they want more. They don’t want to go someplace and get old, they want to be active and involved, and focus on wellness and learning.”

Not only will Union Village include Valley Health System’s Henderson Hospital, a 142-bed, acute-care facility, retail and restaurants, but several residential components as well.

“We are in escrow on three market-rate apartment parcels,” Johnson said.

The first phase will include a 17.5-acre lot with more than 400 market-rate apartments, a 21-acre lot, which Johnson said could include 200 age-restricted apartments and between 300-400 market-rate apartments, as well as a senior living community that includes 150 independent senior living units, 100 assisted living units and 50 memory care units. He added the second phase will include an additional senior living community and he expects to break ground on the 400-unit apartment building before the end of the year.

The development is centered on the “live, work, play” model in which residents can do everything inside the complex.

“What we see is that people in the future will want to live, work and play in the same area,” Johnson said. “We’re hoping for young families with kids, single adults and seniors. We’d like to not just have one, but the full spectrum of age and life position.”

Johnson said residents can enjoy walking along a promenade at Union Village with retail on the ground floor and residential on top.

“Across from the senior living community we’ll have a wellness center with outpatient physical therapy, a gym, spa/massage, chiropractor, pharmacy and therapy pools,” he said. “We’ll also have both public and private restaurants so residents will have the flexibility to be able to eat at 10 or 11 restaurants and won’t be tied down to one on site.”

Union Village, Johnson said, will provide the ultimate in flexibility for seniors. “We’re taking the good aspects of senior living facilities in the past and integrating them into a village to give our residents all the flexibility in the world,” he said.

Johnson added, “When I spoke to a hospital employee she said, ‘I can live at Union Village, my grandmother can live here and I can walk over to visit with her, take her to a restaurant and walk to work.’ That’s the beauty of this and that’s the idea we had when we conceived this.”

Contact reporter Ann Friedman at afriedman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4588. Follow @AnnFriedmanRJ on Twitter.