Affordable and sustainable senior housing
Covenant Place I, located on the Jewish Community’s Millstone Campus, offers affordable, mixed-income housing for seniors who enjoy independent living. KAI provided the architecture and MEP engineering, to both universal design and Enterprise Green Communities (EGC) standards. The four-story building has 101 one-bedroom apartments with full kitchens, ample closet space, air conditioning, WIFI, cable hookup and emergency pull-cords with 24/7 monitoring in bedrooms and bathrooms. To maintain affordability, 66 of the apartments are designated as HUD Section 8, which subsidizes rent and utilities based on a tenant’s income. The remaining 35 are affordable market units.
The common areas provide space for fitness classes and social, educational and recreational activities. The building also includes a library, computer room, hair salon and many other amenities.
Covenant Place I, funded in part with tax credits and a HOME loan from the Missouri Housing Development Commission, is the first phase in a three-phase, $82.5 million project to completely replace the existing obsolete and inadequate senior living facilities on the Millstone Campus. The next two phases will have another 254 units in two new four-story buildings as well as a senior services center that will provide amenities such as a cafe, technology lab, physical therapy services, wellness, banking, beauty salon, meeting rooms and office space.
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Architecture, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Plumbing Engineering, Sustainable Design, Fire Protection Engineering
“Covenant Place is a national model for senior independent living in a supportive community environment. The supportive services will enable residents to remain independent, in their own apartments, in an engaged, social community that is affordable and high quality."
The Impact
Universal design allows seniors to age in place
As the elderly are living increasingly longer, this project sought to provide a range of services, programs and amenities to support older adults from diverse backgrounds to age with dignity. The design utilizes universal design best practices to allow older adults to age independently, for as long as possible. For example, door thresholds, corridors and flooring surfaces accommodate wheelchairs and walkers while light switches and cooking controls are installed at waist height to be accessible to all.
