After years of planning and constructing, Vicar’s Landing at Oak Bridge has officially welcomed its first residents.
The residents that have moved into the senior living community have moved into cottages that were completed as part of the first phase of the project.
According to Dale Pirkle, chief operating officer at Vicar’s Landing, seeing the project finally come to life is a great sight to see after years of planning.
“It’s really been exciting to be a part of it all,” Pirkle said. “My goal now is to get it over the finish line and that’s what I’m focused on.”
The property includes a seven-acre lake that will eventually be stocked with fish so that residents can have the opportunity to do some fishing.
The needs of the residents was always at the forefront during the construction and recreation was definitely a need discussed.
As a result, the clubhouse contains a gym and fitness room for any kind of cardio workout or classes, such as yoga.
One of the unique things about it is the community feel that Pirkle said hopes to be established. That includes allowing the opportunity for residents at Vicar’s Landing Sawgrass to also take advantage of the interesting amenities at the Oak Bridge location, and vice versa.
“We’ve already brought some of our current members over here because we wanted them to see it,” Pirkle said. “They’re not joined at the hip, but we look at it as if they are all just one big community. To have another option is huge.”
So far Pirkle has received positive feedback from those that have moved in, and that means a lot to him.
“Most people have said how much they love it,” Pirkle said. “It’s always good when you hear back and you know that they appreciate all that you’ve done.”
The clubhouse is expected to serve as the hub of the community and includes a giant dining room where residents can go to interact and enjoy fresh meals prepared by the cooking staff on location.
An outdoor pool is also part of the clubhouse design.
According to Pirkle, the initial thought was to make the pool and indoor one, but after consideration an outdoor one was settled on.
“When we started thinking about it, and indoor pool just doesn’t lend itself to the thought of people getting together and socializing,” Pirkle said.
While finishing touches are done on phase one, attention has already turned to phase two, which is underway and will include multi-level flats with a parking garage included on the ground level.
“All the cottages (phase one) are expected to be occupied by toward the end of January,” Pirkle said. “It’s kind of a gradual introduction at this point, but we’re planning an official grand opening sometime around December, because we’ll be having people start moving into the flats by that time.”
There will be 33 units per flat that are being sold and each flat will consist of five levels.
He expects that the demographics of Vicar’s Landing at Oak Bridge to be different from that of the Sawgrass location based on the interest and sales of the units to this point.
“Most of the people that have been moving in here (Oak Bridge) are a bit younger,” Pirkle said. “We have 355 people currently at our Sawgrass campus and the average age is about 86. Eighty percent of the people moving in here so far have been couples.”
Making sure to have amenities in place that cater to both men and women was another important aspect that went into the design, which led to a hair salon and message therapy room to also be added as part of the clubhouse structure.
Future development to the community will include another flat and a memory care facility, which will all be part of the project’s phase three portion.
Despite all the attention going on of late to construct the property at Oak Bridge, it does not mean that the original Vicar’s Landing community has been forgotten. In fact, Pirkle said that just the opposite has taken place.
“At the same time, we’ve also begun doing master planning on our current campus, as we’ve hired architects to look at it and see how we can help out to update it by using what we’ve learned with this latest project,” Pirkle said. “We’re looking at everything to see the ways in which we might be able to make it better.”
