Adriana Senior Living with Brian Scalabrine

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

And Welcome back to answers for elders radio everyone, and you will not believe who I have here on the phone with me, a hometown hero in the NBA, Mr Brian Scalabrini. Brian, welcome to the program Susan. Thanks for having me on the program you know I am. It’s so amazing because we are so NBA deprived here and hopefully that’s going to change in the next five years. But to understand that you’re really the voice of the Boston Celtics and you know, like I compare you to Steve Rabel and understanding a little bit about your hometown roots here in greater puget sound it was. It’s been really an honor for me to learn your story. So I feel so privileged to have you here. Yeah, you know, it’s amazing coming back to Seattle. I get all you know it is. This is truly my home is. I grew up in him Clo, played basketball, went to highlight community college and I just really put my head down work too far as I could. Went to USC and and somehow, some way, reractively stuck in the NBA for eleven years and they can’t get rid of me. I continue to do media now and go to every single Celtic game and call the Games there and I am tooly glassed to be a part of that league and that organization. But the Seattle is such a special place. Guy, I grew up with the Sonics. They didn’t leave until I was already in the NBA. I had a Dow Mbaye kidness my first and second year in the League. You know that’s got have been kind of weird for you, just being in the initial time and you know, being in the NBA of you know, seeing your hometown kind of be shipped out to Oklahoma City and you know everything that happened and in that end it was very tragic for us. And Yeah, we are hopeful that that will come around. Wow. And and here you are. Obviously we’re talking about the NBA on answers for elders, and so our listeners are kind of going like, okay, Susan, what’s the point, right? But here’s the way. They’re stillictiting yet. Know they absolutely are. And and one of the things that I am just so thrilled for is kind of a new venture that you were up to these days and something that you were in town for this last Wednesday for an open house, and so you’ve come here and and really is a brand new, wonderful concept for seniors that are over the age of fifty five. And I say seniors over fifty five, but hey, you know what, there’s a lot of businesses out there that gives senior discounts. So those of us that are over fifty five. So the Adriana senior apartments in de Moine, and I am so excited to talk about this property that you are kind of partners in with venture real estate group and village concepts. So share with us how this all got started. Yeah, so when I was at high line, which is about a mile and a half from the building, I would go now this is where I met my wife, but were still married. We have three children. Actually, my daughter’s name is Adria and I have another daughter named Eliana, and that’s what I named the building after. That’s why it’s called of that Anna. So we would go down to the waterfront and the moines is such an unbelievable community. You know, you have the water there and you just have this place and I felt like it could have been so much more. So my second year in the NBA, I would my connections to high line, which I was come always coming back here, working with the kids here and working out, just trying to you know, space sharperence day in the NBA. But I’d go down to the moines get some food. But I saw this property and I bought a property and the whole concept at that point was what can we do in this area? How can we revitalize this downtown area? And then this this was in two thousand and three and now, all the way fifteen years later, we’re finally cutting the ribbon and opening up the building. So that’s how long it took. But the idea of doing senior housing, it was definitely when you come to the area and you talk to the city, who is very inclusive in trying to promote growth in their area. They’ve done a ton of construction work downtown, improving the roads, improving the streets, the lights, and they said we need senior affordable housing and and basically we became to the call of duty there because we just we felt like it was there’s a need there, and not only in the morines the area, but also in Kings County. You know the huge sometimes going through the room seniors need a place to live where they can feel safe and have fun and being an environment where they can be around other seniors, and that’s what we provided for them. And it’s a beautiful place. This he has moved top debt. It has views of the waters, social events happening or social rooms. It just it’s just a great place. When people come and see it, don’t they’re going to realize, like this is not what you consider maybe like a your preconceived ideas of affordable housing. This is an unbelievable place to to live well. And you know, furthermore, when you talk about that, it’s really, really important to have that independent senior living community for a lot of reasons, and being that I am a, you know, passionate about seniors and and kind of a watchdog. It’s like it breaks my heart to see a senior who maybe you know, living fine on their own, but they tend to isolate and especially if they’ve lost a spouse. One of the things that we’ve been kind of focusing on on today’s show is, you know, what do you do after a spouse is gone and to all of a sudden be left alone on you know, a community like yours, after losing a spouse can certainly give somebody sense of perched purpose. Social life a wonderful activities to keep the mind active, which is so valuable in today’s world of growing older and and so I’m so glad that you have that resource here. So yeah, and just think about it. You know, like there’s a hundred, nineteen units there. I’m sure that there’s five or six people that are going through the same thing that you’re going through, maybe maybe ten to twelve. So those are people you can talk to, you can bounce ideas off each other, you can just sometimes you have to talk about it. Just hanging out, going to the grocery store, going to get your hair done, your nails. I’m like that. That is like therapy in and of itself. And and we really promote, you know, like just a very, very social atmosphere. That’s awesome. And we are now talking to Mr Brian Scalabrini, and he is the voice of the Celtics, but he’s also a partner at the ADREA ANA senior living community and Des Moines and I am so excited that you guys are really out there in you know, I’ve seen so much development down there at the Marina. You know, with Anthony’s being down there. There’s all kinds of wonderful development and certainly what a great place to live out your retirement there. Yeah, and I we should and we should really mention that the city of Des Moines Hass taking unbelievable steps to make this a really progroke community because, you know, like a lot of people in the moines there that were on the city council, on the board maybe ten years ago, they wanted to keep it the way it was. But the people who are in there now they see the potential in this place. They’re doing, they have plans on doing farmers market, opening up a hotel right there on the waterfront, having more restaurants for people can walk through where where our places? Uh Huh. We can continue to improve that walking score where people said, like hey, let’s walk down to the post office, walk down to the Grocery Store, r like that, and like we keeping active, no question about it, and I think like we could not have done this on our own. If we didn’t have the city of the moines backing us all the way and doing the thing that they’ve been doing, this project would not be happening right now. Well, you know what? Another thing that I love is that your community is managed by village concepts. Yeah, and village concepts has, I know, several communities throughout greater puget sound and really, as a loved one’s needs evolved. I’m quite confident. I’m going to speak out a turn here, but I’m assuming there’s a wonderful way for their needs to get met, you know, through the other communities where there’s not a lot of disruption. It’s basically dealing with the consistency of care. Yeah, and that’s the reason why we did the project with them, because they are well established. They have every problem that as could have happened, they’d seen in a hundred times and they solved and they’re preemptively trying to get ahead of those things. So Therese concepts of a phenomenal job and, like I said, this look at the track record, look at the things that these guys have done. They’re all over, you know, the western United States. So we’re really glad that they wanted to go in and do this project with us. Absolutely that is really exciting and and just how is telling me, like you guys just open not too long ago, we’re you know. How’s it doing right now? It’s good. So there’s a hundred nineteen units and we’re at a hundred and one that are already least up. So there’s only my goodness, available. Yeah, and this is like this thing just opened like three months ago. So there are less and people, people are static. I mean like when people walk into the the to the four year and you see a fireplace in the high ceilings and there’s some retail and on the lower levels, like people are really, really excited. Just think it blows their mind about it doesn’t feel like affordable housing, and that’s what that’s that was our vision to begin with. We didn’t want to build something that felt like a portable housing. We could have put up a giant box with windows, but we’re like no, we’re going to make this like an unbelievable building, a staple in the Des Moines community, and that’s what we did. Because we did it. I love that and really, you know, a lot of things too is focusing on the market. A lot of adults over the age of fifty five are looking. You know, I want to downsize and simplify my life. You know, my kids are grown up or married or anything like that. I don’t want to have the, you know, the responsibility of having, you know, to take care of a house or maintenance and all those things, and this really provides that ability to downsize, to have, you know, your lifestyle. And I looking at your website. I mean I see even seniors have pets and things like that as well. Yeah, yeah, it’s we have special units for that. And and I think you hit it on the head right. When you think about those concepts, you think about they have done this. They think about what to seniors need first. That’s what that’s the concept, right, it’s what right needs first. I think put seniors first. The other stuff we could figure out the do they do people want pets? DO THEY NOT? Do they want big dog small like? Will figure all that, but we got to find the needs of the seniors and I think that’s and that’s why I said we went with them because of their experience. So, Brian, how do we reach you guys? Well, well, there’s first of all, there’s a website. So it’s village conceptscom. So, village conceptscom. It’s website. You go has it has all the information for the Adriana. It has information on their other sites as well. You know, like if the Adriana is not a place for you, there’s other places that they have that it suser needs. But those conceptscom is it? And if not, if you’re just old acting like me and I want to use the phone, I want to talk to somebody, we have a number for you. It’s eight hundred and eighty eight five, four and eighty six six zero nine. That’s eight eight eight five for a six six zero nine, and either way that there’ll be someone there to talk to you. If you’re a bit curious for yourself for somebody else. It’s called a number. Every question could be answered for you. Like I said, the experience of days concepts there. It’s a reason why we end up doing the projects. Those conceptscom eight hundred and eighty five, four eighty six six year o nine. Brian, thank you so much again for being on the program today and thank you, Susi, for having me. Okay, take care.