GRAND RAPIDS, MI—As reported in GlobeSt.com last week,Titan SenQuest Senior Housing, the senior housingcompany of Los Angeles-based Titan Real Estate InvestmentGroup, Inc., just bought Sentinel Pointe, a 152-unit retirement community on an18-acre campus in Grand Rapids. And Titan SenQuest presidentDoug Allen tells GlobeSt.com that the western halfof Michigan is a superb market for senior housing and this $10.3million, off-market transaction will play a key role in both thecompany's regional and national expansion.

“Western Michigan is a senior-centric market; it's verydifferent from the other parts of the state,” Allen says. Theregion has a good number of senior centers and its older populationtypically wants “to stay close to their families and are not movingsouth. They are not as transient as other communities. Thesustainability of the senior population in other markets,” such asEastern Michigan, “was questionable.”

Titan SenQuest had primarily based itself in Texas, where thecompany has five senior communities, but has begun building aMidwest regional presence. It now owns two communities in Ohio,including one in Akron, and just closed the purchase of another inMissouri.