Frontier Senior Living Hits Reset After Shedding Almost 100 Communities

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A few years ago, Frontier Senior Living was among the largest operators of memory care communities in the U.S. with more than 130 properties. Today, it is far smaller with just 32 – but that is all part of its latest reset.

Though the period of slimming down was bittersweet and necessitated “saying farewell to a lot of what we love about the business,” Frontier President and CEO Greg Roderick said it also allowed the operator to refocus its operations and retool everything from staffing to resident rates and expenses and emerge on better footing.

Before losing almost 100 buildings from its portfolio, Frontier’s stabilized net operating income (NOI) margins were usually between 35% and 40%. Fast-forward to today and the company has regained and in some cases exceeded that number. Frontier also has grown average occupancy for the last 13 consecutive months.

“We’re getting not only that, but maybe even a little bit more for the buildings that are stable, because we raised the rent, because we’ve retooled the expenses,” Roderick said during a panel discussion at the recent Senior Housing News BUILD event in Dallas. “Frankly, we’re really prepared now to over-deliver for a lot of our clients.”

With a leaner profile than in the past, Frontier is approaching a new year with an eye on growth. The company is preparing to take on at least eight more buildings in the coming months and is spinning up its next crop of new-development projects with partners. And growth is what senior living companies need to achieve right now given the fact that the first baby boomers are turning 80 in 2026, representing the beginning of a massive demand wave through 2030.

“We are ready for whatever comes in the future,” Roderick said.

Frontier’s reset and pivot to growth

Frontier was on relatively good footing as an operator before the Covid-19 pandemic. The company’s average occupancy rate sat at about 92%, and Frontier had a sizable and growing senior living portfolio. Then, Covid-19 struck, and the company went from that average occupancy rate to about 58% during the worst months of the pandemic.

“That was a hit, and in those periods of time, you do a lot of reflection,” Roderick said on stage at BUILD.

In recent years, owners of senior living communities have sold or reshuffled portfolios, sometimes changing the management of a property from one company to another. And indeed, that is what Frontier encountered as owners grew more “financially exhausted” with their sometimes-struggling senior living holdings.

But there was a silver lining to shrinking in size. Now unwound from previous management agreements and certain operational challenges, Frontier had the flexibility to do things like completely negotiate prices with vendors.

“We sat down with every single vendor and renegotiated every single price,” Roderick said.

Frontier Senior Living CEO Greg Roderick; photo for WTWH Media by TBar Productions Frontier Senior Living CEO Greg Roderick; photo for WTWH Media by TBar Productions

The company also redesigned its staffing model using Oregon’s state regulations – “the most stringent in America,” Roderick said – so it can do business in any U.S. state. Frontier in some markets experimented with pay and benefits to find a solution that better works for staffers, and found some surprising results.

For example, at one Frontier community in Oro Valley, Arizona, instead of paying higher wages, the operator began reimbursing employees for mileage.

“In Oro Valley, it’s really expensive and there’s no public transportation,” Roderick said. “Rather than paying high wages … we actually paid mileage reimbursement, and all of a sudden we had staff.”

The lesson to Roderick was that “in different markets, you have to kind of figure out what is the determining factor to get people to work.”

“Sometimes it is wages, sometimes benefits, but sometimes it’s odd things like [mileage reimbursement],” he said.

Training is also a cornerstone of Frontier’s pivot to growth. Since October, the operator has held 327 training sessions ranging from 10 to 30 minutes. Taking that approach, Frontier has slashed employee turnover by half this year. Top leadership turnover is down 80% in that time, he said.

“We’re really investing in skills development, competence and building culture. I know this sounds really cliche, but we have really taken it to another level,” he said.

Thanks to that process, Frontier has pivoted back to a growth footing looking ahead to 2026. Roderick and Frontier are weighing more than two-dozen opportunities for growth. Roderick is also “bullish” on the prospect of new development, and expects the company will break ground on as many as six new projects in 2026.

Giving Roderick more confidence in development standing at the end of 2025 is that the company’s newly opened communities have performed well. For example, a new Frontier community in Garland, Texas, completely leased up in 17 months “without one dollar in discounts.” Now, the company is adding 110 cottages to the campus, half of which are already occupied or have deposits.

“People thought, Garland, my gosh, wow, that’s not very sexy. But the demand is there. The buildings in Richardson [Texas] and Garland are all full,” Roderick said. “Is there room for more? Yes. The population is growing like crazy.”

Senior living industry must grow

Roderick has participated in the senior living industry for 37 years, and he’s seen cycles come and go in that time. At the end of 2025, he is “shocked” at the industry’s current low development totals given the “gigantic” demand ahead.

“It’s a little breathtaking. Imagine how full all these buildings will be. I mean, every building will likely be 100% full with a couple-hundred people on the wait list in four years,” he said. “It sounds really odd, but there’s that much demand coming.”

Although full occupancy and growing waitlists are good for an individual community’s bottom line, it is also an indication that operators are leaving demand on the table. There is also a risk that, if the senior living industry can’t serve the boomers, the boomers may well serve themselves. And there is the fact that, with fewer communities in their portfolios, operators will have to raise rates even higher to make the kind of margins they require.

“We’re seeing some builders out there building huge buildings, which is great. They need them,” Roderick said during a panel discussion at BUILD. “But we need quite a few more in pretty much every market, it seems, to hit this demand.”

The good news for senior living operators in search of growth is that Roderick already is seeing lenders “coming back to the table,” from bond financing to traditional banks and alternative lenders. About a year ago, Roderick said the company could count its number of available lenders on one hand. Now, that number is close to 50.

On the equity side of things, Roerick is still waiting for more movement. But there are inklings that could change soon.

“A lot of the private equity groups are definitely in the market on the acquisition side, but I have seen a few of them dabbling in putting equity into deals and getting some new construction started again, which is really nice to see,” he said.

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