An Oregon continuing care retirement community is embarking on an expansion project centered on sustainable, climate-resilient senior living.
RoseVilla Senior Living is embarking on an expansion project that will add two new neighborhoods — Mahonia EcoHomes and RainWood Lofts — and a facility operations center that will serve as a Resilient Operations and Sustainable Energy, or ROSE, Hub, to its 25-acre Portland campus.
The project will add 97 independent and assisted living homes designed to a zero-energy standard — a building framework in which annual energy consumption is balanced by an equivalent amount of renewable energy produced — and expand emergency infrastructure.
Resident groups involving 57 current and future residents on the community’s wait list helped shape the projects. When the new neighborhoods are complete, 32% of RoseVilla’s residences will meet a zero-energy standard or better, according to the company.
Resident feedback included everything from small details — including outlet placement and the size and stacking of washers and dryers — to larger-picture design choices. Every exterior door at RainWood Lofts, for example, will be a Dutch door so residents can open the top half to visit with neighbors and let in fresh air while keeping their pets inside, according to RoseVilla CEO Glen Lewis.
“Our residents live in what we build every day, and they know things we never could. If we don’t ask them what’s working and what’s not, we’ll just keep doing what we’ve always done,” Lewis told McKnight’s Senior Living. “We design and build better homes when we listen to the people who live in them.”
Lewis said the organization is moving closer to achieving two long-term goals — becoming the most sustainable senior living organization in the nation, and doubling the number of people it serves by 2030, including residents on campus, children and families served through the Rosebud Preschool, older adults and caregivers served through future adult day programming, and people in the wider community reached through programs, sponsorships and partnerships.
“Our industry needs to build more housing, faster, than at any point in its history,” he said. “Imagine if we did it sustainably. Think about the legacy we could leave.”
The projects build on RoseVilla’s 2023 25-year resiliency action plan to reduce energy and water use, and strengthen the campus against extreme heat, wildfire smoke, severe storms, power outages and earthquakes. Mahonia EcoHomes, for example, will produce 105% of its own energy from rooftop solar panels. The campus is also working to cut energy use in half and build a solar and battery system to keep critical power running for weeks in the event of a power outage, Lewis said.
“Wildfire smoke, extreme heat and power outages are happening more often in Portland, and for our residents, each one is a health risk,” Lewis said. “We’re building resilience into our homes, our campus and our culture so residents are safer and healthier every day, not just during a power outage or climate disaster.”
The neighborhoods
The 2.5-acre Mahonia neighborhood will include 12 independent living EcoHomes, a wellness center and a restored oak savanna habitat. RoseVilla will pursue full Living Building Challenge certification — one of the most demanding green building standards — by meeting 20 requirements in areas including energy, water, health and materials.
RainWood Lofts will be the company’s first mass timber — prefabricated, multilayered solid wood panels — residential building and one of the only fully mass timber buildings in senior living.
Once certified, RainWood Lofts will be the company’s largest zero-energy neighborhood with 54 independent living lofts homes and 31 assisted living apartments. Large engineered wood beams and panels will replace much of the concrete and steel in a typical building.
RainWood Lofts will include a creative arts and wellness hub, a theater and performance auditorium, a woodshop, ceramics and glass-fusing studios, a salon and barber shop, an art gallery and expanded dining services.
“I think of it as sustainability in a box,” Lewis said. “Our residents can lean into their values without thinking about the systems behind them. That’s the whole point — it should be easy.”
The addition of assisted living to the campus through RainWood Lofts came from residents, Lewis said.
“Our residents were very vocal — while there’s a place for in-home care, they want and need assisted living on campus,” Lewis said. “With the addition of assisted living, we’re meeting our residents’ needs now.”
Construction on both projects is expected to begin in spring 2027, with completion anticipated in early 2029.
Construction on the facility operations center and ROSE Hub began in September and is expected to be completed in spring 2027. The 3,500-square-foot facility will provide solar power and emergency water during outages. Three 5,000-gallon tanks will collect 15,000 gallons of rainwater, according to RoseVilla.
Lessons learned
The most challenging barrier to achieving Living Building Challenge certification in a senior living community is the rigor of the build and the cost that comes with it, Lewis said.
Most green building standards ask developers to do less harm. The Living Building Challenge requires a building to give back more than it takes, living within the energy and water its site can provide and leaving the land and people around it better off, he added.
“It’s an arduous and expensive process, and I think that scares a lot of people away,” Lewis said, adding that scale is what made it possible for RoseVilla. “The Living Building Challenge is complex to build, not complex to operate.”
RoseVilla’s commitment to building zero energy or better is one of the biggest reasons people choose the campus, Lewis said.
“What we’ve learned is that people want homes that reflect their values,” Lewis said. “That means building responsibly, designing homes that support health and well-being, keep people connected to nature, and are better for the environment.
“In senior living, we spend a lot of time asking how to attract the next generation of residents. We’re doing it by building homes they want to live in.”
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