Atlas Senior Living has added a handful of communities in the D.C. area and Alabama while readying new technology to power operations in the year ahead.
In August, the Birmingham, Alabama-based senior living provider acquired four assisted living and memory care communities, two in Virginia and two in Maryland, marking the company’s first entrance into the greater D.C. market.
Atlas also added a community in its home state of Alabama, with another acquisition in the southeast yet to close.
This expansion effort is part of a broader growth push for Atlas to enter new markets, according to President and CEO Scott Goldberg. Atlas’ leaders are pairing that growth with a new “tech facelift.” While Goldberg said he couldn’t share what the company is working on, he said the company is readying two “major platforms” to support operational changes to deploy in 2026.
“We’re continuing on a positive trajectory just like everyone else in the industry and we’ve added several communities and new strategic partnerships,” Goldberg told SHN. “I’m as excited as I’ve ever been since we started Atlas.”
Operations overhaul includes tech ‘facelift’
Senior living operators in recent years have taken steps to streamline their technology platforms to help refine their operating models. This overhaul on technology at Atlas stems from Goldberg’s desire to improve operations while creating a work environment for staff that allows them to spend more time with residents.
“We’re leaning in on technology just like everyone else is but it means nothing if we aren’t hyper-focused more so than ever on recruiting and retaining best-in-class managers and staff,” Goldberg said.
Atlas’ shift to new technology is also part of an important effort to bring more granularity to the company’s operations and data.
Goldberg said all operators must “lean in” and embrace data and tech to become more efficient and improve care as the incoming generation of older adults brings new needs and wants. He declined to share exactly what the company planned to roll out in the year ahead but said it is readying “two major platforms” central to operations.
“It’s been a year of implementation and onboarding of these new components,” Goldberg said. “We will be in the process of what I would call a full facelift of technology onboarding in 2026.”
In 2024, Atlas shifted to a strategy of growing via acquisitions while new development remained tough to do. Since then, Goldberg said Atlas has structured its acquisitions to improve the process as the company begins to scale. For example, Atlas now has a formal process for how it capitalizes its acquisitions with private equity and institutional partnerships.
As it grows, the company is extending its “operational bandwidth” to improve everything from resident satisfaction to clinical improvements in length of stay and occupancy, Goldberg added.
Goldberg believes in the company’s regional teams to adapt and embed Atlas operating standards at its newly acquired properties and improve them.
To help onboard new communities, Goldberg said the regional teams play a major role in implementing Atlas culture and standards at new buildings. To further smooth out onboarding hiccups, Goldberg said it was paramount for operators to have the right regional and community-level leadership in place.
“We spend a lot of time auditing and checking ourselves to make sure we’re all pulling in the same direction,” Goldberg said. “We have to understand how you can scale and continue to keep who you are as a company if you’re not, if you’re not proactively investing in the right people and their support.”
Having these trusted leaders in place at the regional and community levels helps make it easier for Atlas to scale in the future “the way we want,” Goldberg said.
More growth ahead for Atlas
Atlas is growing by choosing regions where its leaders believe it will be most successful. By transacting in the D.C. area now, Goldberg believes the company is getting ahead of the curve by growing in a market with more runway ahead.
“It fits our mission of being disciplined and being sensitive to our geography,” Goldberg noted. “It’s our mission to make sure that we’re supporting each community.”
Goldberg said that Atlas and its “tangible pipeline” of potential deals are geared around the company being able to secure a stake in ownership of those communities. At present, only a handful of the company’s total portfolio is structured under third-party management agreements. Still, it’s “a lot harder” to buy communities in 2025 than expected, he added, as a bottleneck of inventory makes transactions more challenging.
“It has nothing to do with macroeconomic factors, it’s a unique snapshot of time right now where valuations have gone up overnight,” Goldberg said. “While pricing is favorable, if you’re a seller, it’s a little bit harder to transact.”
Opportunities that have come before Atlas leaders included “a lot of the older vintage and newer vintage” communities, a trend SHN tracked earlier this year.
As revenue “starts to catch up,” Goldberg sees the industry pushing ahead on new growth via M&A as development remains stagnant.
“I don’t want to sound overly optimistic, but it’s real,” Goldberg said. ” A few years ago, we could only look forward to this moment. Now, we’re here, though with the caveat that there’s been a long pause on new product development.”
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