Toronto-based Forrec has designed attractions for Legoland, Dollywood, Canada‘s Wonderland and more. Now it aims to remake retirement communities
Article by Sissi Wang
Paulette Johnson is turning 70 this year. She lives by herself in a modest garden home in a retirement community in Hamilton, Ont., where she organizes dance sessions and karaoke blowouts, and writes for the community’s biweekly bulletin. Johnson moved to the neighbourhood, St. Elizabeth Village, six years ago, after her husband passed away. “The first six months, I was rather quiet,” she says. “And then I started getting involved. Now I’m so involved I have too much on my plate.” By that measure, St. Elizabeth is a successful retirement complex: On any given day, more than a dozen classes, social events and recreational activities are scheduled for the 900 residents of the 114-acre site.
But St. Elizabeth Village isn’t content to stop there. In April, the developer behind the facility, NovaCore Communities Corp., announced an $800-million renovation that will transform the site. The population will surge to more than 3,000, with the goal of turning what’s a rather typical active living complex into a themed lifestyle community. That might sound like marketing jargon, but the plan really is to build the revamped community around a theme—a fictional storyline, more accurately.
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Illustration above by Luke McGarry.