SRC Master Plan Overview
Planning for the Future
Master planning ensures the long-term sustainability of our Saratoga Retirement Community by anticipating the shifting needs of our city’s older residents.
Over the past six years, we have dedicated ourselves to a meticulous process of assessment, planning, and evaluation, which initially commenced in 2017 — to arrive at the current Master Plan. Residents were consulted throughout, and many of the proposed changes are based on their feedback. These include:
- Private rooms in the skilled nursing facility
- Expanded parking for residents, their guests and staff
- Expanded gym and fitness center
- New dining venue to broaden the current culinary program
Other proposed improvements include a larger auditorium for meetings and celebrations, as well as new independent living apartments. Accommodating more residents helps offset rising operational costs while supporting more amenities for all to enjoy.
The Master Plan must also meet various financial, environmental and functional criteria to move it through the next steps in the City’s entitlement process.
Where possible, special modifications have been made in response to current resident concerns including holding construction of Building A for a seven-year period.
Saratoga Retirement Community is a very special place, and we all want this project to be the best it can be for generations to come.
Latest Updates
Watch this space for updates as we continue through the City of Saratoga’s entitlement process.
Benefits
In addition to rising operational costs, a mix of other factors drove our master planning process.
Many improvements were inspired by the needs of our current residents. The Saratoga area is aging dramatically and demand for high-quality communities like ours is growing. Additionally, lifestyle preferences and healthcare best practices are changing. Based on all of these inputs and trends, we identified several priority needs:
Our residents are very active, and they need easier access to their vehicles for their outings and their visitors as well.
The Master Plan introduces 113 more resident, employee and guest parking spaces.
Our residents are very social and engaged in the larger Saratoga community.
Our proposed 3,300 square-foot meeting room is a more functional gathering space for enjoying lectures, hosting celebrations and attending community group meetings.
Our culinary program is truly exceptional; however, there is only one dining room for our residents.
We plan to convert our current meeting room into a new dining venue creating more variety and choice.
Our fitness center is heavily used but undersized.
The expansion doubles the fitness center to 2,000 square feet to better accommodate our residents’ workouts, classes and more.
Our residents enjoy peace of mind knowing that their future healthcare needs will be met. However, our Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center features mostly semi-private rooms.
Our plan converts the center’s rooms to fully private for our residents’ comfort and safety, which also benefits Saratogans needing quality care close to home.
Growing demand for senior living care professionals and housing continues to put upward pressure on our costs, not to mention rising energy, insurance and other rising business costs.
With 52 additional independent living residences, the proposed project helps offset rising operational costs by spreading them amongst more residents.
History
FAQs
The Master Plan has received approval from the Odd Fellows Home of California Board, and we’re confident that it meets the financial, environmental and functional criteria needed to move forward with the City’s entitlement process.
Residents have been communicated with throughout the master planning process and many of the proposed changes are based on their feedback, such as more parking, the addition of a new dining option, the switch to private rooms in the Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center and more.
Additionally, we have also proposed minimizing the impact on today’s residents by deferring construction of one of the new buildings for seven years.
Saratoga Retirement Community is a very special place, and we all want this project to be the best it can be for generations to come.
We are in the early stages of the entitlements process. The Odd Fellows Board has not approved any construction at this time, only master planning. Market and financial conditions would have to be aligned and the Board would have to approve any construction project before that phase begins.
In addition, a seven-year moratorium on the construction of Building A has been offered by the Odd Fellows Board which means no construction in the park would proceed until 2028.
- Adding 52 independent living apartments (increasing total IL apartments to 195).
- Removing 42 skilled nursing beds (going to 52) and converting almost all semi-private rooms to fully private suites.
- Adding a 3,300-square-foot auditorium for gatherings of 250 to 300 when appropriate and making room for a much-anticipated second dining facility. Thus, allowing the existing auditorium to be used as additional dining space.
- Adding 113 new resident, employee and guest parking spaces, including covered parking for residents in the Manor’s apartments.
- Expanding the Fitness Center with an additional workout space for physical therapy, Tai Chi and more.
Yes, residents can join the interest list when the time comes and be considered first for a new apartment home, subject to payment of the applicable difference in fees.
Yes. Fees are used to fund consultants and experts who develop and seek approval of the Master Plan among other costs associated with operating, maintaining and improving Saratoga Retirement Community.
If you are a current resident, you can look forward to:
- Improved parking to make your comings and goings easier.
- Three fire exit gates allowing more than two exits from the campus in an emergency.
- A new dining option for more variety and choice in our exceptional culinary program.
- An expanded fitness facility for your workouts.
- A 3,300-square-foot meeting room to host your celebrations, community groups and other occasions and meetings.
- A private room if you should need skilled nursing care.
These are all significant improvements to our community’s amenities.
With the addition of 52 new independent living apartment homes, you can also anticipate sharing the growing costs of operating Saratoga Retirement Community amongst a larger pool of residents. This keeps your monthly service fees from rising at the same pace as our rising operating costs.
This project contributes vitally needed housing to the City of Saratoga. The state is expected to require 1,700 new housing units in Saratoga between 2023 and 2031. This project will contribute 52 new homes toward that challenging goal.
Additionally, as older residents choose to move from their single-family homes to Saratoga Retirement Community, it creates opportunities for the next generation of families to put roots down here.
The proposed project also creates private rooms in a state-of-the-art Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center for Saratoga residents to recover close to home from elective surgeries and other post-acute care procedures. The population of those over 85 years old in Santa Clara County has doubled over the past 10 years and will continue at that pace for the next 30 years. We’re proud to be a part of the community’s fabric of care.
Environmentally, the new buildings and landscaping will be designed and built to meet the City of Saratoga’s sustainability standards and support the City’s Climate Action Plan and goals.
The Master Plan also helps achieve long-term financial sustainability by welcoming new residents to share in the community’s rising operational costs.
Renderings and Site Plan
Contact the Project Team
If you don’t see the answer to your question in our FAQs above, we’d like to hear from you.
You can reach our project team at SRCmasterplan@retirement.org.
