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A place to cruise at 55
By JUDY STARK, Times Homes Editor © St. Petersburg Times, published July 22, 2000 POINCIANA -- Is this the face of a cutting-edge retirement community?
"This is our vision of what the active adult is looking for," said Brian Nagle, vice president of sales and marketing. That vision includes recreational facilities, opportunities for socializing, and outlets for intellectual and artistic growth, said Daryl Spradley, who heads a development and marketing company in Maitland that focuses on the 55-plus market. Retirement communities such as Solivita "are cruise ships that never leave the dock." The Solivita community calendar for August lists 190 activities, ranging from cooking classes to cocktail parties, Trivial Pursuit games to shuffleboard. These activities will take place in and around a "town center" that was designed to look like a Mediterranean village: stucco buildings in cream, terra-cotta, ochre and deep blue topped by barrel-tile roofs. The developer, Coral Gables-based Avatar, spent between $70-million and $80-million on infrastructure, including a 6,800-yard, par-72 golf course designed by Ron Garl. Other upfront amenities: the Starlite Ballroom, with a theater where 600 can watch a show, plus a dance floor and banquet and meeting space; three restaurants; a winding waterway; and miles of walking paths.
"It's quite a phenomenal facility they've created there," said Spradley. The upfront spending on community amenities is key. Being able to walk through the gleaming fitness center with its rows of brand-new machines and indoor track or to play the golf course or to tour the two-story, glass-walled art gallery is important to retiree buyers, he said. "They want to have fun but not make a mistake at this stage of their lives," he said. "They want to make sure that a developer will deliver the reality upfront, as promised and represented." Plans call for 4,000 homes to be built here eventually. About a third of the land has been set aside permanently as conservation areas. Solivita is part of a huge planned unit development called Poinciana, which Avatar has been developing since the 1960s, when it was considered to be far off the beaten path of Orlando subdivisions. Now Orlando's sprawl is edging out to meet it, but this is still a rural area 15 miles from the honky-tonk, fast food and T-shirt shops that line U.S. 192 in Kissimmee. "There is an issue about the location," said Anthony Crocco of the Orlando office of American Metro/Study, which tracks development. "It's out there, for sure, but the active-adult communities that have been successful have all been remote, well away from the normal population centers." * * *Building an active-adult community here makes sense because of demographics, Nagle said: "It's a need based on the number of people turning retirement age." The first 14-million of the 76-million baby boomers will turn 55 during the next 10 years, and they are expected to be financially well-off and well-educated, a health-and-fitness-conscious market that will "fight aging all the way," he said. They will also bring "tremendous business and intellectual experience," analyst Spradley said, and surveys of pre-retirees indicate that they plan to keep working well after the traditional retirement age, at least part time, perhaps in a volunteer capacity. "The question is, "If I spent 30 years being whatever it is I was, how am I going to redirect that and take advantage of that expertise?' What, is somebody going to throw that 30 years away? So developers have to capitalize on that, and activities and programs have improved significantly" at active-adult communities. "Making potholders in nursing homes doesn't quite fit, not for this group of people." Active-adult communities "are all going in the same direction," Crocco said. "They're basically all the same type of product but a different flavor. It's a market niche. All or most have the golf courses, the significant clubhouses, the recreational amenities. "Solivita has done the same thing. The difference is Solivita has created the streetscape environment for its recreational amenities" -- the little downtown, its one two-lane street lined by those Spanish-style buildings. "It's a different feel than walking up to a clubhouse. It looks more like downtown Celebration or the downtown Villages" of Lady Lake than most of the other active-adult projects on U.S. 27. Solivita's downtown includes the dining, fitness and activity areas as well as the sales center, but no retail, a decision made to keep trucks out of the area, Nagle said. There is talk of creating some retail and a hotel just outside the guard gates along Cypress Parkway. The difficulty in placing retail inside a guard-gated community is that even when the property is sold out, there may not be enough residents to support it profitably. Placing the stores outside the gates means non-residents of Solivita can patronize the stores too. The proximity to Orlando is another selling point, said Pamela S. Hecker, Avatar's vice president of sales and marketing and former employee of competitor Del Webb. "One of the most difficult parts of the decision for someone moving to a retirement area is leaving friends and family," she said. "They should choose a location where everyone wants to come visit them. Many locations do not attract as many friends and relatives." Retirees also typically look for a good airport (Orlando International is 45 minutes away), good health care (four hospitals or medical centers are nearby), proximity to entertainment and shopping (no problem there) and a good road network (the development is near Interstate 4 and the turnpike and less than two hours from either coast). The University of Central Florida has agreed to offer courses at Solivita.
* * *Attracting the 55-plus active-adult buyer is fiercely competitive. Developers know that out-of-state retirees make the circuit, often for several years, visiting the developments up and down the coasts and along the inland ridge of Florida before they make a buying decision.
Sometimes the business comes down to "my amenity package is better than the other guy's." Experts also know that the homes themselves are secondary; potential residents are buying the community first, and, if they're serious golfers, the course is the most important consideration. At the model park, the smallest home is an 1,178-square-foot duplex (it shares a common wall with another unit) with two bedrooms, two baths and a two-car garage, for $89,990 including home site.
In a departure from the usual system of laying out "villages" within a community, Solivita will mix homes of different prices side by side up and down the streets, so that $89,990 duplex could be built beside a $135,000 home beside one costing more than $200,000. * * *
"He tested really well with our market," Pam Hecker said. "He believes in fitness and healthy living; he's a cancer survivor." (Urich has battled a rare form of cancer called sarcoma.) At age 53, Urich is too young to live in Solivita, where at least one resident must be a minimum of 55 years old and no one under 18 can live there permanently. "Well, he can plan his retirement with us!" she said. "He's right on that boomer edge." How well Urich will play with rock 'n' roll retirees remains to be seen. Oh, and that name. Well, "sol" is sun, and "vita" is life, and this is Florida, so. . . . Visiting Solivita
 © St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved. 
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Solivita's pitchman is Robert Urich, the actor who once played the title role in Spenser: For Hire, later donned the captain's cap and gold braid aboard The Love Boat and recently starred as a song-and-dance man in the Broadway musical Chicago.
