Deep-pocketed baby boomers are driving a shift in the location and type of retirement and aged care facilities being built: they're going inwards and upwards.
The boomers' preference for an amenity-rich, cafe culture lifestyle coupled with their ability to afford inner city property prices has refocused the aged care sector's attention on Melbourne and Sydney's inner suburbs.
Both private and listed aged care providers have projects servicing what many see as a new growth area for the sector.
Victorian-based TLC Aged Care, which owns and operates 10 retirement homes in Melbourne's outer suburbs and regions, has turned its attention to inner north Clifton Hill.
Chief executive Lou Pascuzzi said there were only 580 residential care places available for 5000 people aged over 65 living in the immediate area.
"The lack of available development land . . . made a high-rise facility the obvious choice," he said.
TLC plans to demolish a large old factory in Queens Parade and replace it with a 12-storey vertical aged care facility, cafe, pharmacy and medical centre at a development cost of $40 million.
The 126-room centre includes a rooftop garden with a pool and barbecue.
For TLC's future residents, inner city amenities will come in many shapes; in the same suburban block is a McDonald's restaurant and a brothel.
Property giant Stockland has started construction on two residential buildings with 57 apartments in the first stage of a $160 million redevelopment of the Cardinal Freeman Retirement Village in Ashfield in Sydney's inner west.
Stockland describes the project as "unique" in its retirement portfolio, principally because of its location less than 10 kilometres from the city centre and the high-end style of buildings.
When complete, it will have 240 apartments ranging between one and three bedrooms, a 133-bed Opal Aged Care-run facility, clubhouse, pool, gym, bar, hairdressing salon, village green and community vegetable garden.
"We have responded to current and anticipated growing demand for convenient, low maintenance apartment living," Stockland's Stephen Bull said.
Health insurer and fund manager Australian Unity has taken a similar approach.
Its Rathdowne Place village, also in Melbourne's inner north, will co-locate 180 high-rise retirement living units in two yet-to-be-built towers with a newly completed $67 million 162-bed aged care facility.
About 100 aged care beds in the six-storey building had been filled so far, the group's investment specialist, Guy Sainsbury, said.
"Given how much demand we're getting in the nursing home, we think the market is speaking and saying 'We want more of this'," he said.
Australian Unity will start constructing the first of the two eight-storey retirement towers next April.
"Continuum of care and co-location are the big drivers for us. That's where it's going," he said.
The availability of land, planning restrictions, heated property prices and aged care bed licences will all act as a brake on the sector and on the boomers' old age inner city aspirations.
