A new senior community will be built in Forest Acres, a few miles east of downtown Columbia, South Carolina, The State reports. Tuscan Gardens, based in Orlando, will be building the $60 million development on 26 acres that will include 170 housing units with 40 rental independent living cottages, 88 assisted living units and 42 memory care units. “South Carolina is among the other few states we’ve have had our eye on for years,” said partner Charles C. “Buddy” Smith Jr. “It is under-supplied with the quality products we provide.”
Smith, a Charleston native and University of South Carolina graduate, said construction should begin by the end of the year and take 18 to 20 months. The company’s research showed that the site’s location, surrounded by the Melrose Heights, Heathwood and Lake Katherine neighborhoods, in addition to Forest Acres, was primed for a senior living facility.
“We look for supply and demand,” he said, “and that area was very desirous for us.” Some of the site was flooded in 2015. Smith said the company worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to ensure that the buildings would be constructed on land above the 100-year flood line. “We’re well away” from the areas most prone to flooding, he said. Smith added that the company plans to leave about half of the tract as green space at the request of the city of Forest Acres.
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