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Boston and Vambridge can be hard places to leave. That seems especially true for the current generation of retirees, who've built up strong connections with the area over the years. Perhaps they initially arrived for college, found their first paying jobs with local firms, decided eventually to raise their children in the suburbs, but still made weekend trips to the city. Now, with the children leaving home, they're less inclined to take the traditional route--a move south, or a peaceful home on the Cape--and more likely to consider a return to the old neighborhood.
It's one thing to opt for a quiet address in the suburbs. But imagine settling down in the heart of Harvard Square, a few blocks from the T station and just around the corner from the House of Blues. Condominiums are going up next to Winthrop Park, on a site that formerly housed the well-known restaurant Grendel's Den. Peter Palandjian '87, M.B.A. '93, president of Intercontinental Real Estate Companies, and his brother Paul '88, the family-owned company's chief financial officer, see the location as a prime spot for new retirees and "empty nesters" who've always felt at home in the Square.
The Square has always been considered something of a youth-oriented spot. But with continuing renovations increasing its trend toward the upscale, the Square is taking on more multigenerational appeal, luring the college crowd and their parents. "One of the attractions for the baby-boomer generation is being surrounded by that kind of youth and vibrance," Paul Palandjian says about those contemplating a move back to the city. In addition, he notes, "Cambridge is unique because there really are diehard Cantabrigians who have lived in the city their whole lives and want to stay there. They are regular customers at certain restaurants, have a certain routine, are very involved with the community and the political landscape. Those people may be reaching a point in their lives where they don't want to deal with home ownership, but where else would they go?"
With Boston proper now undergoing a major facelift of its own, Palandjian expects the urban renaissance to continue to flourish. "The Boston-Cambridge area has always been viewed as one of the top places to live and do business," he points out. "Crime is down; we've seen a proliferation of restaurants and retail stores. There will be benefits from the harbor clean-up and the Big Dig. People are talking about a new convention center, about the prospect of a new Fenway Park. The trend is toward modern convenience and hassle-free living. So let's say I'm someone who's 60--here I am with my kids in or out of college, I have a big house to keep up and a lawn to cut, and meanwhile my urban friends are going out to dinner in town three nights a week."
That's one reason the Palandjians' company, which previously developed the new Boston Stock Exchange headquarters at 100 Franklin Street and the U.S. Trust building on Kendall Square, is now working on two housing ventures: a set of loft-style condominiums in the North End and the seven-story building in Harvard Square. The Cambridge units, Paul Palandjian notes, will be the first new condominium project in the Square since the late 1980s. "What gears these units toward the empty-nester community," he explains, "is the combination of urban living and luxury condominiums. People reach a point where they don't want to worry about the infrastructural things that go with home ownership."
The Winthrop Square development may be geared toward the higher end of the market. But as Robert Schafer of Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies points out, the retirees who buy these units are only the tip of an approaching iceberg. "We're seeing a slight uptick now, but the real one is going to happen around 2015, when the baby boomers get to be 65 and older," says Schafer, who predicts that boomers will age more actively than previous generations. "They're going to have more income, be more educated and healthier," he explains. "Longevity has been extending out; the trend is that older people's disability levels have been declining. The other thing we know is that family sizes are getting smaller, so seniors may be less able to turn to family members; sharing living arrangements with relatives is becoming less of a factor. People are making different retirement choices, including living in a more urban setting. Are more of them doing it than before? Yes, but there are also more people in that age group. It's a higher incidence because it's a bigger population."
But location, he adds, isn't the only factor that's being considered by the boomers, many of whom are coming "of age" with the same independence they had in their teens. Despite an increasing number of specialized housing developments for the elderly, Schafer reports, "One important thing we're seeing is that people want to age in place; they want to live in their own houses. We've seen recent surveys of the elderly and that's come back as one of the main concerns. Only three percent are going to assisted-living communities. That's going to be a backdrop for everything else: the fact that these people have grown up during the health revolution, and how that bears on what they're going to want as they get older."
Retirement communities, in fact, are reacting to and reflecting the boomers' independence by positioning themselves more as luxury hotels than as rest homes. "The premier communities are really geared for seniors and older adults who want to maintain independent lifestyles, with the provision of having some assistance as needed," according to Michael Zaccaro, chief operations officer of CareMatrix Corporation, which manages retirement communities nationwide. "The surroundings are often very opulent. The facilities offer hotel-type services, so residents don't have to worry about meals, linens, and laundry. Often there are wellness programs with state-of-the-art fitness equipment. These communities are going to be cropping up in major residential areas. They are offered as alternatives, so that seniors can age gracefully in place; they don't have to move to Florida or be away from their families."
Others in the field think newer seniors are more likely to pass up such specialty luxury surroundings in favor of familiar ones. "As people are living longer, we're seeing a younger-minded group of seniors," says Barbara Currier, senior sales broker of DeWolfe Real Estate. "I've been in this business for 20 years, and I've noticed this trend only in the past two years. Many of these people are moving in from the fancier suburbs, coming back to Cambridge. In general, they all want to be as close to Harvard Square as they possibly can. Even places like Somerville, Belmont, and Watertown feel too suburban for them. They want to open their front doors and walk to where they're going; they want libraries, theaters, great restaurants and shops." And they may also want to keep in close touch with their children, who may have just entered college or the job market. "I'm seeing a lot of two-family houses being sold right now," Currier continues. "The kids are in town having young families. The parents are retiring and saying, 'Let us help you out.'"
That's not to say these new urban homeowners won't want a certain amount of convenience in their lives. As Palandjian notes, many empty-nesters do welcome a break from the day-to-day hassles of maintaining a house. Currier says that more townhouses being built in recent years are designed with the master bedroom on the main floor, because older occupants prefer not to deal with stairs.
Joseph Hare, of Hammond Residential, has noticed another trend: retirees who come back to the city, yet hold on to residences in the suburbs. "We're getting a lot of people who don't plan on spending 100 percent of their time in the Greater Boston area," he says. "They're looking for a situation where maintenance is managed by someone else; where there are concierge and security services. They want to leave their property for a month or two and not have to worry about its being watched over."
Cambridge may have a lot of cachet for such buyers, Hare says, but other communities are on the rise as well, "particularly Brookline, because to many people that's almost a part of Boston. You're more likely to be a car-user if you live there, but there's still the T to get you into town." And another suburb with collegiate associations, he says, is also looking attractive. "We just sold a single-family house in Wellesley to a couple in their 50s. They went to school in Boston and lived in the city before they had children."
Whether boomers choose to return to the city or opt for the suburbs, the bottom line is that, for them, retirement won't necessarily be synonymous with settling down. "There are more alternatives than before," says Robert Schafer. "The message is that longevity and income create more options, and the market will help people reach for those options."
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