‘our Customer Is Changing’: Lcs Forges Ahead With Vi Brand In Tow

Tech concierges. Wine tastings. Travel opportunities. Gamified fitness and wellness. These are a few of the offerings that LCS and its newest brand, Vi, have created with an incoming customer in mind.

Earlier this year, LCS officially acquired Vi and the two companies combined. The footprint of the newly combined company is about 130 communities in 29 states, with Vi and its 10 communities existing as a luxury brand within Des Moines, Iowa-based LCS.

The two companies share a similar culture and have multiple areas of beneficial overlap. Senior living operations are growing more complicated as the oldest boomers turn 80 this year, and Vi President and CEO Gary Smith said. LCS has equipped the Vi platform with data analytics, an HR system and an in-house group purchasing organization (GPO). And Vi is lending all its leaders have learned about the baby boomers and what they want out of senior living. 

“We’ve been a small company,” Smith said on stage at the recent TRENDS conference in Chicago. “Being part of a bigger company and having access to the resources of a bigger company is very exciting for us.”

Now, LCS is exploring ways to grow with Vi along for the ride. The company could expand the Vi brand in the months or years to come as opportunities arise. Separately, LCS is vertically integrated and thus has multiple avenues for growth, from in-house development and community expansions to acquisitions and third-party management of communities. With the addition of Vi, LCS now has more than a thousand new customers living in upscale communities and that can help inform the way forward.

As occupancy steadily climbs and is on track to exceed a national average of 90% this year, LCS SVP and Managing Director Tom Mathisen believes now is the time to drill down on growing the company’s net operating income. And with the baby boomers standing at the industry’s doorstep, now is a perfect time to build something new for the future.

‘Our customer is changing’

Underpinning the move to combine Vi and LCS is the fact that both companies believe their core customers are changing. Indeed, 2026 was the year the first boomers turned 80.

Residents of continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs) are typically people who like to plan ahead and find a lifestyle that’s a perfect fit for them. Smith said he recently spoke to a resident at an LCS community in Arizona who had visited 16 different communities before moving into their current home.

To Smith, that is a strong indication that “our customer is changing,” with higher expectations than potentially any generation of senior living customers before them.

“They’re going to want communities to adapt to them, rather than them adapting to the communities,” Smith said.

Fitting into that line of thinking, leaders with Vi and LCS believe that residents desire communities that can offer them a lifestyle similar to how they’re already living. The company caters to those wants by making communities into spots with space for drinking, dining and mingling.

Vi has held wine tastings at communities paired with presentations about how it was made. Vi’s leaders also are supporting residents’ tech wants and needs by expanding a tech concierge role they started years ago.

Many Vi and LCS residents are prolific travelers, and the company partners with partners that can facilitate trips like a train ride to the Canadian Rocky Mountains. The company also incentives wellness through gamified fitness machines that put residents on recumbent bikes or have them move to the groove a la the “Dance Dance Revolution” games.

“It’s really taking the new experiences that we can deliver to residents to the next level,” Smith said.

Vi’s communities have evolved alongside its customers over the years. The company acquired Bentley Village in Naples, Florida, in 1992 and has expanded it over six different renovation phases that added multiple new resort-style amenities and a clubhouse, an 18-hole golf course and larger units for residents.

LCS is learning from Vi’s example and following suit with its own wellness and lifestyle offerings. While Mathisen said LCS still is learning how the Vi brand can best “lean in,” the larger company is on the move with new services. Last week, the company launched LCS Life+, a wellness service its staffers personalize for residents under the pillars of connection, movement nutrition and longevity.

Primed for growth

LCS isn’t just the third-largest senior living operator in the U.S., it’s also a senior housing developer, and the company has holdings in both for-profit and non-profit senior living. Vi’s addition only strengthens the company’s prospects for growth ahead, according to Mathisen.

Class A and A+ communities are starting to fetch prices or recap values that are “super high per door,” he said. That is lending fuel to the possibility of accelerating new development.

“We think we can lean in and figure out how to make projects work,” he said.

Beyond that, LCS also may grow through acquisitions and expansions of existing communities. Where the company acquires communities, it will aim for joint-venture relationships.

All of this hinges on the ability to staff communities, which is a perennial tough issue for senior living operators. LCS has examined its internal training processes to make sure that newly onboarded employees have access to everything they need to succeed. Similarly, LCS employs talent acquisition managers who scour the field in search of new talent.

Where they can, LCS leaders also are using AI and data analytics to predict which communities need help and where to focus their collective efforts.

“We’ve gotten back to the blocking and tackling of staffing,” Mathisen said.

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