Read our latest mention at The Tempe Tribune.
From the article:
In the past six years, Friendship Village Tempe has demolished a pair of four-decade-old buildings and replaced them with state-of-the-art, amenity-rich residence towers that include rooftop pickleball courts and a rooftop restaurant and brew pub.
Both buildings are sold out.
Now the village that bills itself as “senior living for the young at heart” has unveiled plans for Phase 3 of five. It will be a near duplicate of Phase 1, which opened in 2019, and Phase 2, which opened in late 2023, and bring still more rooftop amenities.
This time, Friendship will cross a landmark: Its first million-dollar residences.
Cole Marvin, general manager of Friendship Village Tempe, 2645 E. Southern Ave., said two top-floor penthouse-style, 2,300-square-foot residences will require an entrance fee of more than $1 million.
“It’s unbelievable. When we build these things, the biggest, most bodacious are what sell first,” Marvin said.
Friendship Village is selling those residences already.
Marvin said Phase 3, which will have a 28-month building schedule, will open in mid-2028 at the earliest.
Tempe’s Development Review Commission, during a March 11 development plan review, gave unanimous endorsement to the proposed building’s site plan, building elevations and landscape plan.
The owners and developers hope to have current residents out of units to be demolished and moved elsewhere on campus by the first of the year and to begin construction in January.
Tempe Life Care Village, Inc., which owns Friendship Village, and Ryan Cos., is designing and constructing the five-story, 69-unit structure. It still needs city approval of an amended planned area development overlay before moving forward.
Entrance fees at Friendship Village start at about $250,000, depending on unit size.
It includes Life Care, a contract that allows residents to better predict costs of long-term care, if ever needed, by paying for some of their potential costs in advance through the fee.
There also is a monthly fee beginning at about $3,500 a month, again depending on the residence size. Friendship has one-, two- and three-bedroom units.
Life Care includes independent living, in which residents have access to all of the community’s amenities and activities; as well as assisted living, for daily help like bathing, dressing and medication management; and memory care, for those with Alzheimer’s or other dementia.
The plan also includes skilled nursing, with 24/7 care from licensed and certified staff; and rehabilitation services, with specialized therapies to help residents regain lost skills and abilities.
Life Care ensures that monthly costs remain predictable, regardless of the level of care needed.
Friendship Village says the plan gives residents peace of mind knowing their future care needs are covered at all levels that are available on campus, eliminating the need for disruptive moves.
That, in turn, allows them to remain near their friends and loved ones, while continuing to enjoy their social community.
The Friendship Village model is not for everyone, and it is not cheap. But it is popular enough that new residences are selling out as fast as Friendship Village can build them.
(Courtesy of Friendship Village)
Among the board of directors is Tempe Mayor Corey Woods.
“The fact of the matter is there are more and more seniors moving to the city of Tempe every day,” Woods said. “These people deserve to live their lives with dignity in a beautiful place like Friendship Village.”
All utilities are paid, including cable and local phone.
Also included are housekeeping and flat laundry service, indoor and outdoor maintenance, home and community landscaping, guarded community with 24/7 security, scheduled transportation with outings to community, social, cultural and sporting events and on-site nurse practitioner through a partnership with Pine Heath Park.
Residents may select from multiple dining venues and two bars, including the rooftop brew pub that opened last year.
The campus has a fitness center, staffed swimming pool and hot tub; recreation center with studios for pottery, ceramics, weaving, lapidary arts and a dance floor; woodworking shop, computer lab with training classes, three libraries, a movie theater and a performing-arts auditorium.
The entire five-building rebuild is expected to extend into the mid 2030s.
New look on aging campus
The Courtyard residences that are being systematically demolished to make way for these ritzy new buildings are 45 years old, Marvin said.
“The infrastructure, sewer lines, water lines, design of the floor plans, ceiling heights, which you cannot fix — all of those things are so dated,” Marvin said.
“So, basically, we demo those and build the open floor plan with lots of natural light, tall ceilings. This being the third one, I think we’ve really dialed in the floor plans that are most well received.
“We’ve still kept some smaller floor plans in there to keep our model somewhat economical to people that understand and believe in the concept but don’t need an 1,800-square-foot apart.”
Units will start at 800 square feet in Phase 3, which will be known as the Ironwood Building.
Friendship’s Del Fuego Sports Bar, which sits in the footprint of Ironwood, will be demolished and rebuilt on the rooftop of the new building on a grander scale, according to Marvin.
“We’re reimagining Del Fuego up on the roof area, which will help us make it how we’ve always wanted,” he said. “It will have a real nice, open floor plan, lots of big TVs, gorgeous bar with a view that’ll be unbeatable.
“And then we’re going to have two lanes of duckpin bowling up there, which will be a ton of fun for our residents.”
Del Fuego will have a sports-bar-type restaurant.
“So, it won’t compete with our other venues,” Marvin said. “It’ll be something completely separate. We like to make sure our dining destinations and menus don’t compete with one another.”
Ironwood will match the appearance of Phase 2, the Acacia Building, and be connected to it on the second through fifth floors. Ironwood will have underground parking with 76 vehicle spaces and 35 bicycle spaces.
Acacia, which features a rooftop restaurant and brewpub, opened in late 2023 with 64 independent-living apartments and four guest suites. Phase 1, the Mesquite Building, with its rooftop pickleball courts, debuted in 2019.
Those buildings are connected so residents can walk from one rooftop to the next. Ironwood will be similarly connected to Acacia.
Acacia was built for just under $50 million. Ironwood is expected to be in the high $60 million range. Entry fees and monthly fees from the sold-out Acacia are expected to put a significant dent in construction costs of Ironwood, according to Marvin.
In turn, he said, fees from Ironwood, when it sells out, will carry a significant load of construction costs of Phase 4, which will be assisted living, for which there will be no entrance fees.