Oak Hammock received permission Tuesday from Gainesville’s Development Review Board to move forward with a new four-story building at its retirement living facility off Williston Road.
The new building, called The Canopy, would provide 56 units of independent apartments with 104 bedrooms. Oak Hammock, started in 2004 and with around 500 residents, has a variety of housing options including independent homes and apartments to complete assisted living.
Kevin Ahmadi, president and CEO of Oak Hammock, said nearly a third of the new apartments have already been reserved for residents. With Tuesday’s approval, he said the plan is to continue with pre-sales, get construction documents and start construction in September or October.
“We are seeing an incredible growth of not only our demographic, of the people that we serve across the country, but here in Gainesville as well,” Ahmadi said.
Ahmadi said the plans will also include renovations to 54,000 square feet of community spaces. The last major construction to happen at the facility was the expansion of the Health Pavillion in 2016 and 2017, but he said The Canopy is the first addition of independent-living apartments since the community opened.
Ahmadi said the building will be LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified, an important qualification for residents. Oak Hammock has already hired Bahar Armaghani, director and instructional associate professor of the Sustainability and Built Environment Program at UF, for the work.
He said Oak Hammock’s Board of Directors and staff are working on a 10- to 15-year master plan that will get opened to residents for input. The community will look at expansion as the retirement industry remains behind the curve on housing. Ahmadi estimated that America is a couple hundred thousand units behind.
“What will be even more interesting is what happens with the next generation behind [the silent Generation], looking at Generation X, which is my generation,” Ahmadi said.
He said question marks still surround what kind of retirement experiences Gen Xers will prefer and, even more importantly, what their savings look like in order to retire.
According to UF’s Shimberg Center for Housing Studies, Alachua County had 48,805 permanent residents 65 years or older. By 2030, the center projects an increase to 60,021 permanent residents 65 years or older—around 23% of the county’s permanent population.
“Our community was built to expand, and we’re taking advantage of that,” Ahmadi said. “And we believe that in the future scale is going to be pretty important as we continue to see rising costs in services. It’s going to be important for us to spread those costs over additional apartment homes and services that we can offer.”