South Florida developer Terry Salzman won site plan approval for the development of a six-story, 245-unit senior living facility in Weston.
Fort Lauderdale architecture firm Synalovski Romanik Saye LLC designed the 325,808-square-foot building with 113 units for independent living, 108 for assisted living, and 24 for memory care.
A resident of Weston for the last 25 years, Salzman said the impetus for developing a senior living facility in the suburban city was his struggle to find one for his late father.
“My father had gone through the senior living cycle, going into independent living, going into assisted living, and finally into a memory care facility,” Salzman said. “Finding something that was close by, that was quality, was challenging. That’s really the impetus for us.”
The Weston City Commission approved a site plan for the project on Monday night after rezoning the development site on Racquet Club Road last month.
Salzman expects the 18-month construction phase to start by the first quarter of 2025. He has not yet selected a company to operate the 55-and-older facility.
Salzman manages a company that acquired the 6.6-acre development site for $3.75 million in February 2023, state and county records show. The development site at 357 Racquet Club Road in Weston is just west of the interchange of I-75 and I-595.
Obtaining construction loans for multifamily developments has become more difficult due to high borrowing and building costs, but Salzman said he’s prepared to wait a bit for the best financing deal.
“We bought this property for cash,” he said. “We’re aware that it may take a little bit of time, given the current financing environment out there, for the deal structure to make sense, and we’re comfortable if it’s going to take us six months to put everything to bed.”
The site of the unnamed senior living development is the former welcome center and professional office of Vacation Village, a timeshare company.
The property previously had two zoning designations. On April 15, the Weston City Commission rezoned the entire site to “mid-rise multifamily” (MF3) from “low rise multifamily” (MF2) on 5 acres of the 6.6-acre site, and from “commercial” (C1) on the other 1.6 acres.
“From a consumer standpoint, we know what the [senior living] market needs,” Salzman said. “That’s why we kind of strayed outside of our development lane a little bit. We’re more mixed-use retail. That’s our strong suit.”
Among other real estate projects during his career, Salzman worked with investor Robert Shapiro to acquire and assemble the land that Kimco Realty Corporation bought for its development of Dania Pointe, a mixed-use development spanning 102 acres in Dania Beach.