Vivalon’s Healthy Aging Campus

Age should enhance quality of life.

Incorporating age back into the community

BY JANE VICK

Everybody, if they’re lucky enough, gets old. As David Bowie said, “Aging is the extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been.”

Joining people in that process Marin County's Vivalon, a central resource hub for Marin County’s older adults.

“Aging,” says Vivalon's director of communications Jennifer Golbus, “is a community responsibility, but our state isn’t set up that way. There’s this idea that it’s a family responsibility, and that’s just not enough. There’s so much more support necessary.”

To address this need, Vivalon is in the midst of creating its Healthy Aging Campus.

Years in the making, the Vivalon Healthy Aging campus was proposed to fi ll the gap of a facility where seniors could live, hang out, exercise, » »

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‘I could tell you story after story of our members that we interview who have five different doctors or seven different specialists, and they have to go all over Marin to get care. I won’t say our clinic will solve all of that, but certainly some of it.’ — Jennifer Golbus

receive medical care, and generally enjoy what are supposed to be the golden years.

“The main thing for us,” says Golbus, “was that we were not going to build this facility on the outskirts. Older adults need to be embedded in the community, and part of the community. Near where family and friends can visit, near to city amenities, near to public transportation as many of them don’t drive anymore, and so on. Our location search was very intentional.”

On January 21, 2022, Vivalon closed escrow on a property exchange with BioMarin and became the official owners of 999 3rd Street, the plot of land that will contain the Vivalon Healthy Aging Campus.

Conceived of as a response to the issue of isolation and the income challenges many seniors also face, the Healthy Aging Campus, by their own definition, is an affordable, vital “modern living hub.” Partnering with Eden Housing, the Campus will offer 66 affordable studio apartments for residents of 62 and older, as well as a community center, healthy aging center, and medical facility. This building will be open to Marin elders and their families county-wide, not just to residents of the building. The campus is scheduled to open in 2023.

“It wasn’t easy. We struggled to find a place to purchase because, being a nonprofit and not a land owner we don’t generate the same taxes. In other words, the community wants all the services of a nonprofit, but they don’t love us being a landowner," says Golbus. "Our work around, set in motion by our last CEO, was to approach BioMarin, who is building their own campus, and pointed out the need for them to show community benefit. We did a land transfer with BioMarin, where they gave us a corner of their facility, and we have a location that we gave to them, and the financial difference in the value of those two properties gave BioMarin an opportunity to claim and in-kind donation, which they could write off. That’s what allowed us to get this beautiful piece of real estate.”

Golbus says they want to get building as soon as possible, and have already begun a capital campaign.

“We’ve partnered with Eden Housing, and they’ll raise the funds for the housing portion of the center. The top floors are going to be 100% affordable housing for adults 62 and up, and the bottom two floors are going to be a healthy aging center, a community center, and a community clinic. We’ve partnered with a health care partner

who I can’t officially name yet, to run the clinic.” This clinic in particular, says Golbus, is addressing a major need Vivalon has heard vocalized by its members time and again. “I could tell you story after story of our members that we interview who have five different doctors or seven different specialists, and they have to go all over Marin to get care. I won’t say our clinic will solve all of that, but certainly some of » » it. Things like medication management, physical therapy, and piedietry.” And the idea is that this isn’t just a trip to the doctor’s office, it’s also a pleasurable place to be, whether or not you’re a resident. “While you’re there you’re also enjoying lunch, or playing mahjong, or listening to a speaker. There’s a theater, a ukelele class. A lot of the things that we do currently at our healthy aging center, but in an even more equipped facility. And we really want to stress that the clinic is open to the entire community. The healthcare clinic and the campus. They’re open.” This is one of the biggest Vivalon endeavors to date, and something they’ve dreamed of as a nonprofit, and Vivalon doesn’t want to stop here. “When we reached our 10 million dollar capital gain goal we had Mayor Kate Colin and other local politicians, saying ‘this is the model we need to be following, this is the way communities should be doing it.’ We really want other nonprofits to copy us. Our now CEO Anne Gray wants to go out to other communities and share this model so that it can grow.”

For more information on the progress and timeline, visit www.healthyagingcampus.org.