New Era Living Ceo Plans To ‘reinvigorate’ Senior Living Company With Renovations, Expansion 

Regional senior living provider Era Living this year named a new CEO and now, it is adapting operations to prepare for the next generation of senior living customers.

Longtime senior living executive Nisan Harel was named CEO of the eight-community operator in January after most recently serving as the company’s COO, while having held various roles on the company’s capital projects and operations divisions since 2008. He is also the son-in-law of Era Living founders and current Co-Presidents Eli and Rebecca Almo.

His leadership style is influenced by his extensive time at Era communities interacting directly with residents and staff to understand the company’s mission of honoring older adults while supporting operations.

Stepping into his new CEO role, Harel said Era is set to backfill leadership positions by promoting a regional direction of operations to vice president operations and hiring a new regional director of operations. This adds depth to the company’s leadership team and gives more capacity to “pursue new initiatives” within operations.

“I have been supporting leadership over the years and while they are still involved on a strategic level, this new role is exciting and a natural transition,” Harel told SHN. “I was able to understand the business from the bottom up and that’s been extremely beneficial for me.”

Harel told Senior Housing News Era in 2026 is focused on improving customer service to meet baby boomer demand and offer staff new training to evolve operations. New customer service training is planned for all staff across operations after working with a third-party consultant, something Harel said was a “big focus” this year.

“It’s time for us to reinvigorate our customer service program and get on the same page,” Harel said. “We know we have to think differently to adapt and that’s a big component of what we want to accomplish.”

This is all in the name of preparing for the ongoing and future baby boomer demand. The next generation is “different,” with new desires and perspectives that will shape operations and programming for years to come, Harel said. Socialization, brain health and providing quality dining services are crucial for pleasing this incoming demographic, he added.

Era is restarting a renovation effort at one the company’s oldest properties while also starting on a strategic planning effort to shape future growth. That effort will shape future growth over the next five years, Harel said.

To renovate its oldest property, Ida Culver House Ravenna, Era will “completely rebuild” to modernize the community. Aging properties and renovating first-generation communities or investing CapEx have been a recent priority for some operators as large scale development remains difficult. The Ravenna renovation effort will rebuild the five-story community with 142-units planned spanning 209,000 square-feet and 6,000 square-feet for commercial retail space, according to project planning documents.

“This is a big opportunity for us and we’re working through the due diligence on the project,” Harel said.

Era is also aiming to solve employee retention while hiring clinical and licensed nursing staff remains a challenge, a recurring headwind facing the industry in recent years. Era relies on its partnership with the University of Washington School of Nursing to foster new clinical talent. But a crucial component is training clinical leaders to take on leadership roles beyond their clinical positions, Harel noted.

“We want to help them do that because it’s a different skill set blending that clinical expertise and management expertise,” Harel said.

All Era communities are located in downtown Seattle and surrounding metropolitan areas, spanning the full continuum of care. The company’s dense portfolio helps provide communities with support in operations as needed.

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