As with child care, the market isn’t meeting demand for elder care in the Wasatch Back.
Dec. 1, the only continuing care retirement community in Summit County will close. County leaders are exploring ways to replace it.
“[Councilmember] Roger Armstrong, and I have met recently with some of the leaders of the Park City senior community,” Councilmember Chris Robinson said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” last week. They toured county-owned land along Old Highway 40. “There are a lot of details to be worked out, but we do have land there and that might be a good use for it."
It's not been an affordable place to build: High Valley Transit and Mountain Regional Water have had to blast bedrock for their future facilities. And that’s just one economic factor standing in the way of a continuing care retirement facility, or CCRC.
A nationwide issue
The American Health Care Association’s 2024 access to care report says it's becoming more difficult to open CCRCs.
Developer Dakota Pacific Real Estate has explored including assisted living in its plans for western Kimball Junction.
But during an Oct. 23 discussion with the council, the company’s Director of Commercial Development Steve Borup said potential operators don’t think Summit County is populous enough.
“Forty beds, the population could meet,” Borup said. “But the new operators aren't looking for 40-unit complexes, right? Those aren't as efficient as 125-unit complexes, or 125-bed complexes.” They say they need more land to accommodate that scale.
The facility Summit County is losing, Elk Meadows Assisted Living & Memory Care in Oakley, has 42 rooms.
The owners are selling because they say they are losing money. According to the AHCA, the average operating margin on a continuing care facility, nationwide, is -19%.
Its 2024 report recommends expanding federal support to protect aging Americans’ access to care. There’s been a steep decline in new assisted living facilities since 2020.
The AHCA says during that time 40 counties across the U.S. became “nursing home deserts” with no skilled care options for older residents. Of those, 34 were rural communities.
Summit County, Utah, is about to become another, all while its population is aging.
The working-age population has plateaued, but the non-working age hasn’t. Additionally, county staff predict more Summit County residents will be older than 65 than will be younger than 14 before the end of the decade.
Paths forward
Dakota Pacific has proposed reserving housing in Kimball Junction for seniors if it can’t find a continuing care operator.
A proposal to develop a 400-unit CCRC in Highland Estates failed last summer after neighborhood pushback and council concerns about Highland Drive traffic.
This summer, instead of waiting for developers to meet community needs on their own, Councilmember Canice Harte called public-private partnerships “a critical path forward”—speaking in the context of affordable housing.
In the meantime, Elk Meadows residents are looking at options outside the Wasatch Back. Rocky Mountain Care facilities in Heber are running waitlists, as are 57% of nursing homes nationwide.
