RENOVATION / REPOSITIONING (CAMPUS) NOMINEE
Blakeford at Green Hills
Blakeford Senior Life (BSL) is nestled in, and a member of, the Green Hills Homeowners Association development in Nashville, TN. This provides the campus with a strong community connection and gives its residents an intergenerational setting in which to live and thrive – complete with HOA-sponsored walking paths, a lake, and a robust recreation center. As its name suggests, the broader Green Hills neighborhood boasts rolling hills and gently curving tree-lined roads, all of which BSL worked to preserve and complement with their expansion and re-positioning project.
The campus was fully occupied with a waitlist and had typical capital improvements and modest interior refurbishments. In 2018, BSL began strategic planning that led to a large expansion and repositioning, which touched every part of its campus and has readied it for the next generation of senior consumers. The nearly built-out existing campus was renovated to include new, luxury independent living apartments above structured parking and a state-of-the-art fitness and wellness center. Renovations included the removal and replacement of an existing wing of assisted living with assisted living memory care, and repositioning spaces within the original memory care building to skilled care / short-term rehab. Commons areas were also extensively renovated.
Exterior Before | After
Common Room Before | After
Blakeford collaborated with stakeholders to understand the impact on the surrounding residences and then to enhance the broader Green Hills neighborhood through its repositioning program, taking care to solicit and incorporate feedback from neighbors into the design.
BSL wanted to add assisted living memory care to their offerings, which was a significant driver in the overall program. The project team demolished one existing assisted living wing and replaced it with a modern memory care neighborhood, complete with indoor and outdoor walking loops, outdoor dining and courtyards.
The temperate California climate also encourages an indoor/outdoor lifestyle, inspiring our members to enjoy
outdoor dining and lounging next to the fireplace in our courtyard.
Dining Before | After
Within the skilled nursing center, the resident rooms were working well, but the entrance, oversized central nurse station, and undersized social/gathering spaces were in desperate need of change. The project team reimagined an open, welcoming residential living and dining room that replaced the medical model nurse station, which was moved to a less prominent area and bolstered with an on-suite break room for staff convenience.
Designed to offer each member an elevated and engaged life, including the Elegant Palmer Library and Lobby.
Pool Before | After
While residents could traverse all levels of care from within the buildings, walking routes to various destinations were initially indirect and lacked intuitive wayfinding. Creating better access and intuitive wayfinding was, therefore, another focus of the repositioning efforts. One creative solution to bring residents to assisted living was the addition of a bakery window along the corridor between the commons and assisted living. The window opens onto a pastry station where you can interact with staff and are regularly tempted to snag a sweet treat as you pass by.
By infilling an existing internal courtyard and enclosing it with a massive skylight, the main community ‘front door’ and adjacent restaurants have been elevated to brightly lit, vibrant and welcoming spaces. Experiential dining spaces, an art studio, a game room, a cocktail bar, and an outdoor event space now grace the entrance experience, positioning BSL as a future-ready community!
Assisted Living Before | After
