Claiborne Senior Living to Make Active Adult Push, Hires HumanGood Alum Hutson

Editor’s Note: Editor’s Note: Interested in the active adult market? Check out SHN’s Active Adult Virtual Summit, taking place July 15-17. Click here to learn more and register.

A relatively new senior living operator hopes to make some waves in the active adult space — and the company has hired former HumanGood Chief Strategy Officer Dan Hutson to help make it happen.

Hattiesburg, Mississippi-based Claiborne Senior Living last month named Hutson to the newly created position of vice president of marketing. In his new role, Hutson will aid the company as it seeks to develop and launch its own active adult model in the coming three years. Specifically, he will spearhead the company’s initial push into the product type, according to Tim Dunne, Claiborne’s president and COO.

“He will be leading the research to try and pin down what this segment is, how it can be defined, what sort of data we can use to define our target segment, and then also what that product will be and which offerings we’ll have at a minimum,” Dunne told Senior Housing News.

Hutson is no stranger to thinking outside the box. At HumanGood, he oversaw strategic planning, sales and marketing, corporate communications, and innovation and experience design. He has advocated for more creative storytelling in senior living marketing, and for adapting technology to fit the needs of residents and older adults.

“How we are going to determine what that [active adult] product is involves a lot of data analytics, research with prospective clients in various focus groups that Dan has done in the past,” Dunne said. “And then incorporating all that data into our site selection process.”

Claiborne, the in-house management arm of developer CR Properties, currently has five open senior living communities and six others in development or construction in 11 states. The developer launched Claiborne in February in order to take over management of its properties, which were previously managed by a third party.

The company’s communities are generally positioned to attract the higher-end of the middle market, with rates for an assisted living unit starting at about $3,000 for a one-bedroom apartment, Dunne said. In smaller markets, the company likes to develop and own communities with about 50 units for assisted living and 20 to 30 units for memory care. In larger markets, the company gravitates to communities that have about 100 units, with a mix of AL and memory care based on the surrounding area’s needs. Claiborne also has a third senior living product: a combined independent living, assisted living and memory care community.

Despite all the thought that the company has given to the senior living industry, Dunne is convinced that, as baby boomers age, they will want something different than what is currently offered in the marketplace.

“I think our end product will be a mix of what’s existing on the market, and perhaps some additional offering in terms of how to get some of these individuals engaged with the local surrounding area,” Dunne said.