The Kendal Corporation is returning to its roots with a new planned community and a concept driven first by prospective residents.
Expected to open in 2028, the community, Humboldt Commons, is planned to have 101 independent living homes and apartments, and amenities such as walkable connections to McKinleyville, where residents can access pickleball courts, libraries, parks and organic grocery stores, along with health navigation services. The planned community is slated to join Kendal’s “federal” system model of affiliates that “maintain autonomy and respond to the needs of their distinct location, culture and founding context.”
The community is unique in that its genesis lies not with Kendal’s leaders but with a group of grassroots volunteers and prospective residents called Life Plan Humboldt. Typically, a senior living company or organization will plan a community and solicit residents to move in before and after opening. The new community tipped that model on its head with the Life Plan Humboldt group planning, coordinating and fundraising, then partnering with Kendal to develop and launch the affiliate.
Adjacent to Humboldt Commons, Kendal also is planning an affordable housing community called Rural Community Housing Development Corporation that will further offer a range of options for seniors. Residents also will have access to walking paths and trails, a beach and nearby redwood forest.
“There are tons of community connections,” Byrd said “It’s really not a standalone, gated suburban kind of thing you might see in a lot of other places.”
Kendal and Life Plan Humboldt first began collaborating on the idea around two years ago.
“Back in the ‘90s, a lot of the Kendals were developed because there was a local community that wanted to age in place,” Vassar Byrd, Kendal CEO, told Senior Housing News. “It’s been a decade or two since we have been able to partner with a local grassroots organization that has that same goal.”
Life Plan Humboldt has to date raised $3.2 million from more than 500 donors, many of whom wanted a way to age within their own community.
“There’s nothing like this within 200 miles of our building site,” said Life Plan Humboldt President Ann Lindsay.
With the community, Newark, Delaware-based Kendal seeks to expand its offerings in a more rural setting at a lower price point. Kendal currently has 10 affiliates across eight states.
By raising funds and collaborating on the community with Kendal, prospective residents get to know each other in a way that senior living residents typically do not, before they move into the community together. That helps create a more cohesive resident group, according to Lindsay.
As a Kendal affiliate, Humboldt Commons will benefit from the existing organization’s scale while maintaining its independence, a press release states.
Alongside returning to its personal roots, Byrd sees the new affiliate as a return to form for both Kendal and the wider industry.
“That is how the entire industry started, was that people decided, ‘Hey, we can do this together,’” she said. “It couldn’t be more meaningful to me as an organization.”
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