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Senior Living Insights

Accelerated Site Planning: Rapid Iterative Processing

March 4, 2025
Isaac Wallace, AIA, NCARB Avatar
Isaac Wallace, AIA, NCARB
Market Sector Leader, Senior Living

Expanding Your Senior Living Community

Your Waitlist is Growing—Now What?

Your senior living community is at capacity, yet demand continues to rise. You have an extra acre of land, but the path to expansion feels overwhelming.

Key Questions to Consider

Before breaking ground, you need answers:

  • Where do you start?
  • What will the city allow?
  • How many units can realistically fit?
  • What codes and regulations must you navigate?

A Smarter Approach to Expansion

These challenges are real—but they don’t have to slow you down. By leveraging a Rapid Iterative Process, you can quickly evaluate your options and identify the best path forward.

The Power of Data-Driven Decision Making

With just a few hours of research and the right technology, you can get clear, actionable insights before committing significant resources. This strategic approach helps you make informed decisions early—saving time, money, and frustration in the long run.

Planning your expansion doesn’t have to be daunting. With the right process, your community’s future can take shape faster than you think.

A Rapid Iterative Process is a development or problem-solving methodology that emphasizes quick cycles of testing, feedback, and improvement. This dynamic approach enables stakeholders to quickly assess, refine, and optimize community designs, services, and operational strategies. By leveraging rapid feedback loops and data-driven insights, this method ensures that senior living communities evolve efficiently to meet resident needs, regulatory requirements, and market demands.

In order to streamline this evaluation process, it is crucial to not dive too deep into any one aspect of the process. Finding out what might stop the project from moving forward as quickly as possible is the key to conserving resources. By simultaneously evaluating the zoning and codes and market demand, we are able to identify the parameters that are going to drive the design solutions.

Zoning & Code Analysis

Every municipality seems to have its own nuanced interpretation of what senior housing is and where is should be classified. Many communities don’t actually have zoning definitions in place that align with the use. Early engagement with the Planning and Zoning Office is essential for a successful senior living expansion project, ensuring compliance with zoning laws, land use regulations, and building codes. Early discussions help identify necessary permits, infrastructure needs, and potential regulatory hurdles, streamlining the approval process and preventing costly delays. Engaging city planners also allows developers to optimize site design, address environmental concerns, and align with community expectations.

Proactively working with zoning officials fosters collaboration, gaining early stakeholder support and reducing the risk of opposition. A quick meeting with all parties at the table can save hours of wasted design time. It also helps refine project elements such as density, parking, accessibility, and green space requirements to guide the parameters for design and development.

Communities often have design overlay districts or long-term planning documents that may impact design, location or even allowable use. By integrating regulatory insights from the start, developers can identify opportunities to accelerate approvals, minimize risks, and streamline the design process.

Market Demand

A successful senior living expansion requires more than just available space—it must align with demand.

A market demographic study provides crucial insights by analyzing age and income data to identify the number of seniors in the area who can afford various levels of care. It assesses the competitive landscape by examining existing senior living facilities and unmet market needs.

Additionally, it considers trends in care preferences, understanding shifts in demand for independent living, assisted living, and memory care services. Projected growth is also a key consideration, estimating future demand based on population trends and aging patterns. Combining these data points ensures that any expansion effort is not only viable but also responsive to community needs.

Test Fit & Design

The iterative aspect of the design process is essential for effectively engaging with city officials. Meetings are more productive when visual communication tools clearly convey project intent. These tools should evolve throughout the design process, starting with simple test fit diagrams that quickly assess site capacity, program, and orientation, then refining into more detailed plans that incorporate feedback and regulatory considerations.

A test fit is a preliminary site analysis used to explore the capacity and configuration of a potential senior living development. It helps determine how many units or beds can fit within the available footprint while ensuring compliance with zoning regulations or identifying the need for variances. Test fits also assess infrastructure requirements, such as utilities, access, and parking, while considering operational efficiency, including staff, resident, and visitor circulation. By generating multiple layout options, test fits allow decision-makers to compare scenarios, identify constraints, and refine concepts before advancing into full-scale design.

Integrating these studies into a rapid iterative process offers several key advantages:

Enhanced efficiency by quickly ruling out unsuitable sites and focusing on the most promising opportunities.

Cost savings by avoiding unnecessary expenses on extensive design work before feasibility is confirmed.

Flexibility, as plans can be adapted based on real-time data and evolving market conditions.

Supported stakeholder engagement by providing clear, data-backed insights to facilitate community discussions and decision-making.

By utilizing a rapid iterative process, communities can strategically expand senior living options in a way that maximizes both space and demand alignment. Combining test fit analysis with zoning, code and demographic research ensures that developments are not only feasible but positioned for long-term success. This data-driven approach empowers stakeholders to make confident, informed decisions while streamlining the path from concept to reality.

Embracing rapid iterative processes isn’t just about speed—it’s about continuous learning, adaptability, and delivering real impact.

Todd Hudgins

Senior Vice President, Senior Living
+1 608.410.8008

Take the Next Step

Contact ERDMAN to discuss how we can help you advance your senior living community.

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