The Woman Behind Ecumen

That direction was codified in a five-year plan that Roberts laid out. “We know that about 95 percent of seniors will never be in a [senior-housing] setting,” Roberts says. “So if our mission really is about serving older adults where they live, we’ve got to figure out how to do that.”

And that was how Ecumen took a both-feet leap into the development of market-rate senior housing—standard housing options whose costs are unsubsidized by the government, but which typically offer services such as meals and cleaning. Ecumen has built market-rate housing and expanded existing properties in Duluth, Detroit Lakes, Worthington, Chisago City, Mankato, Apple Valley, Hutchinson, and Owatonna. It also has opened a new residence in New Richmond, Wisconsin.

Ecumen’s compound annual growth rate in market-rate housing revenues is 27.6 percent, far outstripping its other business segments: nursing homes, federally subsidized residential communities for seniors, home care, management and consulting for other facility owners and investors, and clinical services for long-term care providers. If Ecumen meets its 2009 projections, its revenues will have grown 32 percent since Roberts took over. But in the future, market-rate housing should be only a part of Ecumen’s continued growth.

Team Ecumen

Under Roberts’ leadership, Ecumen has begun to extend its reach into other states, including Idaho, Iowa, North Dakota, and Wisconsin. It also has conducted development consulting for clients in Nebraska, Florida, Nevada, Oklahoma, and Washington.

For clients considering the construction of their own senior housing, Ecumen established a one-stop-shopping development entity, which Roberts calls “Team Ecumen.” Its members, all based in the Twin Cities, include the construction firm Adolfson & Peterson, architects Pope Associates, and commercial real estate market analysts Maxfield Research.

Riding shotgun on the group for Roberts is Steve Ordahl, Ecumen’s senior vice president for business development. A key player in the nonprofit’s reinvention, Ordahl coordinated its first real effort to build a new state-of-the-art senior housing complex: Duluth’s Lakeshore, a facility along Lake Superior on the site of a former Board of Social Ministry nursing home. With its 100 units of independent living, 40 assisted-living units, 60 rehabilitation units, and 20 units of “memory care” services for Alzheimer’s patients, Lakeshore—like most Ecumen facilities—features a high-tech innovation called QuietCare, which consists of a series of wireless sensors that continually transmit information to caregivers about any changes in residents’ daily routines.