Anew, two-building, 27-story senior living community in Tysons, Va., emphasizes wellness and biophilic design elements. The Mather, a luxury community for adults aged 62 and older, is situated on a small site surrounded by high-rises.
Architecture firm SCB, headquartered in Chicago, led the project team for developer Mather: Bowman Consulting Group, Affiliated Engineers, and the Whiting-Turner Contracting Co.
The Mather, a high-end retirement community that opened in March in Tysons, has a spa with a salt-therapy “breath lounge” for residents with conditions such as seasonal allergies and asthma. The spa also offers sound therapy, a light-therapy “wave bed,” and a “living wall” of herbs that are made into exfoliating scrubs.
Erickson Senior Living—which locally operates Ashby Ponds in Ashburn, Greenspring in Springfield, Woodleigh Chase in Fairfax, and Riderwood in Silver Spring—last year invested $500 million nationally in improvements to its properties, including upgraded fitness and aquatic centers, walking trails, and pickleball courts.
After several years of construction, Mather recently began opening its
huge luxury senior living high-rises in Tysons. I sat down with CEO Mary Leary to learn more about the project and what’s in store for the future — and was also given a tour.
Spoiler alert: Mather is teeing up another project in Northern Virginia. “We believe the market is very strong,” Leary said, adding that her Illinois-based organization is “actively reviewing sites right now,” though she wouldn’t say precisely where.
Older residents will have a new housing option in Tysons next month.
After almost two years of construction, The Mather Tysons will start opening the first of its two high-rise apartment buildings at 7929 Westpark Drive during the first week of March, according to Mather Senior Vice President of Connections and Sales Gale Morgan.
About 90% of the 179 units in the 27-story “north” building are already reserved, Morgan told FFXnow. Opening in phases, they’ll be joined in the fall by the first of 114 apartments in The Mather’s 18-story “south” building, giving the complex a total of 293 residences.
The “next generation of senior living” will soon come to Tysons with the opening of The Mather, a “life plan community” coming to the Westpark area across from Tysons Galleria this spring. It will be the fourth community for Mather, an 84 year old not-for-profit providing luxury retirement living to seniors, as well as running the Mather Institute, a research institute on aging.
But what exactly is a “life plan community” — and what makes its approach “the next generation of senior living” for its residents?
Long known primarily for its shopping malls and office towers, Tysons has undergone big changes in recent years, spurred by the opening of new Silver Line Metro stations. A number of mixed-use developments have opened or are under construction, bringing a slew of new residences along with more restaurants and retail. (Some businesses in Tysons—technically a “census-designated place”—use McLean or Vienna as their address.) Meanwhile, the nearby incorporated Town of Vienna has its own new reasons to visit.
The traditional image of a senior community includes “Acres” or “Glen” in the name and a huge, grassy campus with rolling hills. But that may be changing, if recent developments in the DC area are any indication.
The Grandview development in North Bethesda, Maryland, run by Erickson, and The Mather, a community “for those 62 and better” run by the company Mather, in Tysons are examples of high-rise retirement communities set in more urban areas.
The Grandview from Erickson Senior Living is under construction, though it still requires approval of the Maryland Department of Aging.
When you think of the region’s largest senior living complexes, you probably picture sprawling gated communities like Greenspring in Springfield or Leisure World in Silver Spring. They are practically their own ZIP codes.
Senior living communities are always looking for ways to improve the well-being of their residents and staff—and biophilic design is one approach to do just that. But what exactly is biophilic design?
“The word biophilia literally means ‘love of life,’ and it refers to all the ways that humans respond to the natural world,” said Mary Leary, CEO and president of Mather. “We’re calmed by the sounds of birds singing and [the] wind in the trees, we’re cheered by the colors and patterns of a garden [and] we feel safe when we have shelter with a view of our surroundings.”
The Mather is now as tall as it’s ever going to get.
The apartment high-rise buildings for adults 62 and older “topped off” earlier this month, less than a year after beginning vertical construction.