Apartments: Building Beyond Amenities

LOS ANGELES-Is there a pool? As a multifamily developer, we know this question well.  Amenities are essential in today's apartment communities, as renters continue to evolve their needs and wants based on ever-growing lifestyles.

But a new question has emerged which pushes beyond the now-standard pool and fitness center:  How can we offer features that go beyond basic apartment amenities?

As family and senior housing specialists for over 20 years, Meta Housing Corp. has been asking and answering this question repeatedly.  The result is an ever-evolving group of apartment communities which feature not only the luxury amenities today's renter might expect, but also a series of activities and programming that enrich the lives of our residents.

For example, in our family housing projects, we discovered that we can significantly improve total resident satisfaction by providing both a place and opportunity for primary school kids to engage in safe, after-school learning opportunities. Over time, we have expanded this insight into ongoing after-school mentoring programs which are offered at no additional cost to our renters. 

The benefits of these programs were immediately apparent. Children living in our apartments now have a safe, positive environment in which to spend after-school time, in many instances keeping them away from risky situations and associations. In addition, participants in these programs experience increased confidence at school, which helps to improve their overall performance as students.

As a developer, the success of these programs meant an evolution of common areas. Once we knew the programs were working, we began to design spaces for these specific activities.

For example, a few years ago we developed the Pico/Gramercy Apartments in Los Angeles.  Within the project, we designed a free-standing building which looks like a single-family home from the outside. The physical attributes of the structure offer a stepped buffer between our apartment project and the surrounding neighborhood by reduction from four stories to two stories and then to one story. The single-story building serves as the home to the ongoing mentorship and after-school studies programming.

Another example of ongoing project evolution emerged in our senior housing communities. In the first generation of these projects, we built a significant “great room” where people could see others and be seen as they engage in activities. After watching the activity in these communities, we realized that these “great rooms” tended to attract a small group of highly involved residents.  That said, the very intensity of these small groups tended to discourage participation by others within our communities. Our goal was to increase participation and satisfaction levels.

We then set out to create communities which would be much more inclusive. With this direction, we launched our second generation projects, which introduced the concept of a community college atmosphere. These communities offer classes which allow all residents the chance to choose which programs might be the best fit for them. To accommodate this atmosphere in addition to the “great room,” we created conversation nooks and other easily identifiable common areas throughout the community where people could set a meeting or hold a class, such as “the balcony overlooking the main community area” or the “third floor bridge.”

These second-generation communities presented a new insight. Over time, we noticed that some of the college-class-type activities were bursting with interest, bringing residents from the entire community together in a spirit of excitement. The most successful of these activities were connected with creativity and the arts.

With that key learning in mind, we designed our third generation of senior communities, which are thoroughly focused on participation in the arts. An example of this generation is the Burbank Senior Arts Colony, in which we built spaces specifically for arts classes and small performances to accommodate ongoing arts programming. 

Today, we have already moved into the fourth generation of our senior housing projects with the new NOHO Senior Arts Colony.  Building on the arts-focused community we delivered in generation three, we introduced a new element which gives residents the chance to aim even higher in their creative pursuits.  In this community, we added the permanent presence of an independent professional theatre group. We also designed a $4 million, 78-seat professional-grade theatre on-site in which the award-winning Road Theatre Co., (our permanent theater group), will operate. The theatre will be available for other activities when formal plays of the Road Theatre Co. are not scheduled.

Over time, as we continue to observe each community and build upon key insights to further expand the lifestyles of our residents, we will continue to evolve our designs to accommodate the programs and activities which most enrich our residents' lives. We expect that there will be many more generations of both family and senior housing communities to come. And not to worry; we'll still include a pool, as well as a library, billiard room, film editing room, fitness room, etc.

John Huskey is the president of Meta Housing Corp. He can be contacted at jhuskey@metahousing.com. The views expressed in this column are the author's own.