Despite Long Development Cycles, Universities Offer Opportunities For Senior Living  

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As the senior living industry continues to bridge the intergenerational divide, one setting is beginning to become more popular, presenting an opportunity for operators and developers: the college campus.

Having senior living communities on or very near university campuses isn’t a new concept by any means, with some in operation for years. But the concept is picking up steam, particularly in 2026, partly because the development-approval process is becoming easier.

Take Merrill Gardens, for instance. The operator recently announced it has been selected to develop a new community in partnership with San Diego State University, with the 250-unit project slated for a 2030 opening date, according to CEO Tana Gall.

Gall told me she’s particularly excited about this new community, and sees the potential university locations have to offer, especially with the amount of land many of them have set aside for development and expansions. They also offer a wide variety of engagement opportunities, both with education and activities to take part in.

“I don’t want to just do one kind of retirement living, but if I had to … it would be on college campuses or around college campuses,” Gall told me. “This is something I would love to move into at some point in my life.”

Senior living is currently facing an extended period of development stagnation as well, with available real estate being one of the barriers to breaking ground. Just last week, the investment gap needed to meet the incoming demand of baby boomers by 2050 reached $1 trillion, according to the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care.

These university locations can offer a solution for operators, with the caveat that they have their own fair share of unique challenges that operators will need to consider if they decide to pursue their own projects. 

In this members-only SHN+ Update, I analyze recent reports and conversations with operators to offer the following takeaways:

• University senior living projects hold unique advantages for development opportunities 

• These projects have unique difficulties that must be overcome 

• Demographic trends and desires point to university projects having potential for rapid occupancy 

Signs point back to school

More operators and universities are seeking out partnerships in 2026 than they have in previous years. Earlier this year, Andrew Carle, president of Carle Consulting and formerly lead faculty for graduate curriculum in senior living administration at Georgetown University, told me he used to average three consultations per year. As of May, he had completed five – and had another five consultations line up, with clients expressing interest in pursuing this type of collaborative partnership.

Universities see senior living as way to continue filling their campuses as well, with a looming “enrollment cliff” approaching higher education at the same time the baby boomer wave hits senior living.

According to information from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, there is a predicted 13% student population decline by 2041 attributed to declining birth rates and fewer graduates. As such, these institutions are looking for additional ways to fill its population and avoid closure.

While senior living communities won’t be able to realistically fill this level of decline, it can be used to stave it off. These types of communities also hold a draw for the modern senior, according to Bob Kramer, founder of Nexus Insights and former CEO of the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care.

“We’re dealing with a different customer in the boomer. They’re looking for experiences. They’re not looking for a care destination,” Kramer told me. “The opportunity is driven by this new customer, but it’s driven also by universities now really interested in partnering with senior living communities.”

This all comes at a time when senior living is struggling to build new projects as well, with 2026 showing record low new units being developed at less than 1% new inventory added as of March. In all of 2025, there were only 5,000 new units added.

According to Gall, this is one of the primary draws for her as an operator and developer, and the timeline for completion is beginning to shrink. For some, such as Gall, the process of filing a request for proposal and receiving approval took 13 months. Part of that comes from catching wind of the university wanting to modify its master planning, according to Gall.

And even before breaking ground, Gall told me that while it’s a small sample size, residents in the operator’s nearby Bankers Hill community are already excited about the prospect of

“Universities still have land in premium locations. So as universities are looking for revenue, and we’re looking for great pieces of land, that just seems to line up for me,” she told me.

Not without challenges

On the information I am seeing and what operators have told me, university and senior living operations have plenty of advantages to them. However, they’re not without their share of difficulties as well, with development timelines and approval processes being the top two.

Construction timelines for senior living communities as a whole have continued to climb, reaching an average of 29 months as of the end of 2025. That construction timeline for a university project can nearly double that length.

Even for Merrill Gardens’ latest project and its relatively speedy approval process, the building isn’t slated to begin welcoming its first residents for another four years. Even that comparison is rather quick compared to other university developments, which in some cases take between five and 10 years from concepting to completion, according to Carle.

Even Varcity, which focuses specifically on university projects, sees long development times. When it announced its Texas A&M project in mid-2025, the estimated delivery date was just over two and a half years away.

Operators looking to run a university retirement community will also look at having to share parts of the revenue they generate. The Mirabella at ASU, for example, has been deemed a financial success for the university, as the operator paid $7 million upfront to lease the ground the community is on, according to a 2024 report from DePaul University. This isn’t including additional payments in place of property taxes that would have been in place if the land was not owned by the university.

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