People shopping for new, more spacious single-family houses where they can hunker down during the pandemic may be overlooking places that meet most, if not all, of their needs: town houses and condominiums. The newest breed of town houses and apartments check all the boxes for riding out the virus — and beyond. Indeed, many seem to be designed especially for the pandemic, but often at a more affordable price and in a more walkable location than detached houses in the far-out suburbs.
Yes, these attached homes normally are somewhat smaller than their stand-alone brethren. But today’s plans often include dedicated home offices, separate spaces for home-schooling, and dual master suites — handy for extended families, or if someone must be quarantined.
Some have kitchens with expansive islands for cooking, crafting and gathering, and walk-in pantries for stocking up on essentials. Some even come with finished basements for whatever the need may be — lounges, bonus rooms or play areas for the little ones — and private, fenced-in backyards for safe outdoor activities.
No longer a basic two-bedroom, two-bath cube, some condominiums are evolving, too. Some now even offer multiple floors. Let’s look again at Chicago, where the CA6 West Loop project by the Belgravia Group offers four-bedroom duplexes. These two-story units feature dedicated office spaces, flex rooms to accommodate multiple uses, and outsized 700-square-foot private terraces that can hold a trampoline or an inflatable pool.
These units range in size from 3,100 to 3,157 square feet with four bedrooms, 3.5 baths and a backyard. But starting at $1.65 million, the prices here are not for the typical buyer.
Prices are somewhat more modest at 7180 Optima Kierland, a new 12-story tower in Scottsdale, Arizona: The tower’s one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, as well as penthouses, start at $500,000 and run up to more than $2 million. The median resale price in the Phoenix area was $315,000 in July.
Housing developments are reaching new heights, yet not exactly in the literal sense. Driven by creativity, ingenuity and a passion for nature, Optima, Inc. is pushing the limits of innovation in the architectural design industry with their one-of-a-kind environmental living spaces.
Founded by David Hovey Sr. and his wife Eileen Hovey in 1978, what began as a collegiate business model quickly morphed into a continually evolving company that has now constructed 45 developments across its Illinois and Arizona markets.
“We aim to bring a visionary and enduring approach to each one of our communities and design each development to be customized to its location,” says Hovey Jr., CEO of Optima Inc. “With our design-driven lens, we believe that beautiful and innovative spaces create a sophisticated living experience.”
During his time at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Hovey Sr. envisioned a modular housing system that connected the natural environment with a man-made environment. Under the guidance of his mentor and professor Arthur Takeuchi, the two perfected an architectural design that integrates sustainable living with biophilia.
Expanding into the Arizona market in 2000 created bountiful opportunities for the future of Optima, Inc. Explosive job growth, warm weather, population density and striking natural surroundings enticed David and Eileen Hovey to make their move into the Sonoran Desert, where their transformative buildings would thrive.
To most, the desert climate may seem like a bigger challenge, yet that’s precisely what Optima, Inc. is seeking. With a collaborative, communicative and visionary team, the company aims to take risks and encourage fresh, new ideas that advance modern living.
“As part of a common purpose, our team recognizes the power of sharing knowledge across our team and gives us all the satisfaction of achieving success together,” Hovey Jr. says.
Equipped with a reliable and resilient team of experienced individuals, Optima, Inc. is on an upward climb that seems unstoppable. Within the Arizona market alone, the company has erected property sites across Phoenix, Biltmore, Old Town Scottsdale, Kierland, North Scottsdale, Mesa and Tempe, including the most recent luxury green-building design, 7180 Optima Kierland.
1. Optima, Inc. has announced construction is expected to begin on the 22-acre, $1B+, 1,330-unit Optima McDowell Mountain Village this summer. Phase I will deliver approximately 210 apartments and another 210 condominiums.
2. Martens Development and its general contracting partner Willmeng Construction broke ground on Mission Park, a two-building, 723.5KSF Class A industrial park at I-10 and Perryville Road in Buckeye.
3. Sunbelt Investment Holdings Inc., along with general contractor Graycor Construction Company Inc., have debuted design plans for and started construction on Phase I of Camelback 303, totaling 516.3KSF. The project initiates SIHI’s 4MSF industrial park in the Loop 303 Corridor in Goodyear. Phase I is designed for use by a single tenant or is divisible to three tenants.
4. DCS Contracting broke ground on the Ocotillo Road: Sossaman Road to Hawes Road for the Town of Queen Creek. This project will widen Ocotillo Road to two lanes in each direction with a center turn lane, bike lanes, sidewalks, drainage improvements, utility modifications, street lights and traffic signal installations. Improvements are anticipated to be completed by late 2024.
Providing consistently strong service is a key differentiator that can build resident as well as brand loyalty.
A resident at Optima Kierland Apartments, a community designed, developed and managed by Optima Inc., left behind a $15,000 diamond necklace when she headed east for her wedding. Ben James, an assistant property manager at the community, was able to retrieve the necklace and get it to the resident safely and securely in time for her wedding.
Ben James is usually the first staff member to arrive at Optima Kierland Apartments in Scottsdale, Ariz., getting there at 8 a.m. most mornings. As assistant property manager of the community, his daily responsibilities include meeting with the maintenance manager for an update, walking the property to ensure amenities are open and in tiptop shape, greeting residents and providing assistance to anyone who comes into the office.
But one day in January 2025, James was faced with a resident request he hadn’t experienced before—something beyond the scope of his routine responsibilities at the apartment community. A resident was getting married and had left behind a $15,000 diamond necklace – a family heirloom that she planned to wear for her wedding on the East Coast.
“Frantic was an understatement,” said James. “This was on a Thursday, and the wedding was Saturday. We got permission to go into the apartment, and the resident let me know exactly where it was in the bedroom.” He then took it to the post office and mailed it out via the safest and most efficient method. It arrived on time, and the resident was overjoyed.
But James is not alone in his dedication to providing extraordinary customer service. Today, more than ever, service is essential to attracting and retaining residents. After all, with so much apartment inventory available, and more in the pipeline, renters have more options than ever. So how a resident or prospective resident is treated from the point of first contact can make the difference between their ultimately executing a lease or renewal—or not.
“During Covid, people realized that it’s not as much about the fancy gym or the other amenities,” said Taylor Blades, a senior marketing manager for Yardi Systems. “It’s about how connected they feel to their community, and that connection comes from the level of service they get from the on-site team.”
Above-and-beyond service is a win-win
Many apartment operators pay renewal bonuses to their on-site staff, and if an act of kindness makes a resident more likely to renew, that benefits the staff member and the landlord. Others recognize the employee. James, for example, said he was named “Employee of the Quarter” due to his customer service skills.
A joint venture between Optima and Principal Real Estate Investors has completed a second apartment tower at Optima Kierland Center in North Scottsdale, Ariz.
The building at 7140 Optima Kierland follows the 10-story, 150-unit 7160 Optima Kierland, which upon opening its doors in May 2017 established the Valley of the Sun’s briskest leasing rate in history, attracting 134 move-ins within three months. That tower has remained more than 95 percent occupied in the three-plus years since.
The construction of the 12-story tower at 7140 Optima Kierland is ongoing. The building is topped off, windows have been set in place and power has been turned on. First move-ins are slated for August. In total, 7140 Optima Kierland will feature 213 one-, two- and three-bedroom residences extending in size from 737 to 2,225 square feet and featuring rental rates beginning at $2,160 per month. Each residence will offer floor-to-ceiling glass walls, luxury plank flooring, solar shades and large outdoor terraces created for indoor and outdoor living. A rooftop “Skydeck” featuring a pool, sauna, fitness center and full-court indoor basketball court is among the property’s leading common-area amenities.
Residents of 7140 Optima Kierland will also be able to utilize Optimized Service, a seven-days-a-week, in-home concierge program provided by Optima’s on-site team. Among the services offered are dry cleaning pickup and delivery, in-home plant watering and package delivery to the home’s interior within 24 hours of the package arriving at the community.
A virtual concierge service also furnishes residents with help in booking reservations and appointments, and coordinating travel and similar tasks. In addition, residents benefit from Smart Home technology that automates a number of in-home features. Optima is offering prospective renters both in-person appointments and virtual leasing experiences.
Right on time to meet the recent increase in demand for elevated apartment living in the greater Phoenix-metro area, real estate development firm Optima announced today the opening of the luxury apartment tower 7140 Optima Kierland in North Scottsdale, with immediate move-ins available and the leasing gallery and model residences accessible for private tours.
As the second apartment tower located within Optima Kierland Apartments, 7140 Optima Kierland has already achieved 40 percent leased which outpaces the rental market by nearly double. Comprised of 213 thoughtfully designed, one-, two-, three-bedroom and penthouse residences ranging in size from 737 to 2,225 square feet, monthly rents start from $2,220. The first apartment tower, 7160 Optima Kierland, achieved the fastest leasing rate ever in the Valley in its debut in 2017 and has maintained 95 percent occupancy ever since.
“There is a major trend at play with renters looking to downsize from their single-family homes in favor of the luxury and convenience of the Optima lifestyle, many of whom have relocated from out of state or are considering doing so,” said David Hovey Jr., AIA, president and principal architect of Optima. “With the debut of 7140 Optima Kierland, we’re excited to be able to offer prospective residents a chance to enjoy the community’s unmatched location, services and amenities, and to be able to meet the demand for large, well-appointed apartment homes in the Valley.”
Optima Kierland presides over a lushly landscaped oasis, offering acres of verdant courtyards, a sparkling water feature at its base and a spectacular rooftop Sky Deck at its apex. Spacious private terraces accentuate the tower’s distinctive architecture on all sides, replete with the newest evolution of the signature Optima vertical landscape system. Between the dramatic backdrop of the desert mountains just beyond the doors and the vibrant plant life providing natural privacy, the boundary between indoors and out is blissfully blurred.
After selling out the condo tower at 7180 Optima Kierland, Optima has now broken ground on the 216-unit apartment tower at 7190 Optima Kierland. This represents the fifth and final residential tower at the Optima Kierland development.
PHOENIX — Luxury real estate firm Optima announced Wednesday the grand opening of 7190 Optima Kierland in North Scottsdale.
The building is the fifth and final tower within the Optima Kierland development, according to a press release.
The 10-story tower has 216 residences including, studio, one, two, three-bedroom and penthouse apartments. The apartments range from $2,600 to over $11,000 per month with 30% of units in the building already leased, the press release stated.
Amenities feature a rooftop sky deck with an Olympic-sized pool, a running track, spa, bar, fitness center and more.
David Hovey Jr., AIA, Optima’s president and COO, said he is excited about the opening of the final building.
“The location will always be highly coveted, but what sets our developments apart has been our dedication to unique architecture, high-quality construction and providing the next evolution of amenities,” Hovey said.
U.S. population growth is slowing and expected to continue declining over the next decade. At the same time, demand for multifamily rental units continues to be robust, a trend Fannie Mae predicts will continue over the long term.
Can both things be true at the same time? They can, say the professionals who keep a close watch on the demographic trends shaping the multifamily industry. Shifting demographic factors—including delayed household formation, aging renters, and lifestyle-driven mobility—are redefining who rents and why. And as developers and investors grow more savvy about parsing their rental pool and technology makes it easier than ever for REITs to align their portfolios using artificial intelligence (AI)-driven demographic strategy, they’re rethinking everything from geographical choices to unit mix to amenity strategies.
Younger generations are waiting longer to form households—the average marriage age has increased more than four years since 1990—while housing costs are driving outsized demand for rentals, says Roberto Casas, senior managing director for JLL. That means the renting population now spans a larger age demographic than it ever has, and this has been a big factor in pushing multifamily from 0% of the Open End Diversified Core Equity Index in 1980 to 32% today, he says.
“Aging demographics and structural changes, such as delayed marriage and a rise in the share of single households, are the biggest changes we’ve come across in both our proprietary data as well as third-party data sources,” says TJ Parker, senior vice president of market research and data analytics for multifamily investment and management firm Bell Partners. “On demographics, we are seeing a flattening of the curve across age cohorts, which means demand is spread out across both younger and older age cohorts.”
As mortgage rates decline, some millennials and Gen Zers will leave the rental market to buy homes, Parker says, but, at the same time, Bell is seeing more demand from older renters who are choosing the convenience of renting over the upkeep of owning a home. “But, of course, real estate is very local in nature,” she adds. “The demographic composition may vary widely across communities and different Bell markets, which adds complexity in terms of providing services that cater to those needs from a property management perspective.”
For Mary Cook, president of Chicago-based design firm Mary Cook Associates, getting demographics right means looking beyond things like average age and income. Cook’s team susses out “the who” of new projects by exploring the area’s key employers, figuring out where people are migrating from, and visiting nearby retail stores and coffee shops.
Cook says she realized, for example, that her design for a property located between Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, had better be next-level tech savvy when she stumbled across a neighborhood coffee shop with an electric board that displayed how long her order would take based on an algorithm tracking how many people were in the store. For a property in Princeton, New Jersey, proximity to a pharmaceutical company that employed many people from East India prompted Cook’s team to include lock boxes in the mailroom for passports, visas, and green cards.
“The ‘who’ is what informs every aspect of our design, the strategy behind how we dedicate space, and how we prioritize space,” Cook says. “The aesthetic ends up coming last.”
Gen Z: Renting as a Lifestyle
On a macro level, Gen Z—which now comprises 27% of the workforce and 30.5% of all renters—is driving the rental market. Because this cohort had the unfortunate timing of starting their professional lives just as housing costs soared to unattainable levels, about 85% of them are renting, says George Ratiu, vice president of research for the National Apartment Association.
But young adults aren’t renting simply because they can’t afford to buy. Many simply prefer it. In a June poll, Entrata and Qualtrics found that 72% of Gen Zers said they believe renting is financially smarter than owning a home, 83% said renting helps them save for other priorities, and 37% said they prefer the ease of on-call maintenance over the burdens of home ownership.
This generation is also geographically nimble, much more willing than older generations to move in search of a better or more affordable lifestyle. They’ll pay a little more to live in walkable neighborhoods with parks, coffee shops, and restaurants, and they’re flocking to smaller, more affordable metros in the Midwest like Ann Arbor, Michigan; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Des Moines, Iowa—places their parents fled.
Developers are responding to Gen Z demand in these cities with amenity-rich properties in downtown hubs. In Des Moines, Double Eagle Development is building a $50 million, 202-unit complex on an urban infill site near restaurants and a growing entertainment district. In Ann Arbor, 4M recently opened a 216-unit, mixed-use mass timber complex powered by a natural gas fuel cell system and other environmentally friendly features that appeal to climate-conscious Gen Zers.
In addition to location and sustainability, these new developments are targeting tech-native, wellness-oriented Gen Zers with amenities like lightning-fast connectivity, coworking accommodations, and social spaces and programming that build belonging and address mental and emotional well-being. To counteract the amount of time this generation spends on screens, Cook says, Gen Z-focused properties “need to be really activated with all sorts of activity rooms to keep people more engaged with each other.”
Projecting a highly curated, authentic spirit, The Sadie in Fort Worth, Texas, targets those who not only appreciate art and culture but live it in their everyday lives. (Interiors by Mary Cook Associates, developed by Toll Brothers Apartment Living )
Not Your Father’s Senior Housing
Gen Z is not the only flexible, mobile, and digitally fluent generation to embrace renting. Their parents and grandparents—baby boomers—are chasing many of the same amenities, including walkability, access to transit and public services, and climate-responsive and resilient design. As such, boomers have become a desirable growth market for luxury properties.
Make no mistake—the number of 80-plus renters is growing at ever-accelerating rates, pushing net absorption for senior housing to record highs. But Doug Ressler, manager of business intelligence for Yardi Matrix, points out that the pool of potential tenants for senior housing is limited to people who can afford the high price of assisted living. Younger seniors who can’t see themselves moving into age-restricted, health care-oriented housing until they’re 85—if ever—are a ripe market, Ressler says.
Adults in the 65 to 85 age range often have pets and may still be working. They want space, but they don’t want the hassle of maintaining it, which is why they’re a driving force in the growing build-to-rent single-family rental market, Ressler says. They’re also not averse to living among young adults in apartment complexes. “The nature of generational conflict is not near where it used to be,” he says.
“Boomers and Gen Z actually cohabitate pretty well,” Cook says, “because you don’t have the kid factor.”
This trend started to emerge in the early 2010s, when developers who built Class A urban apartments to capture affluent millennials realized a lot of baby boomers were moving in, too, says rental housing economist and consultant Jay Parsons. “That demographic is not necessarily looking for something that’s geared toward a senior adult,” he says. “They’re maybe looking for something that makes them feel younger.”
“Renting has become an increasingly popular option for active seniors who aren’t interested in age-restricted housing but seek a maintenance-free lifestyle in an accessible building,” says David Hovey, president of Optima, a company that designs, develops, builds, and manages multifamily communities in Arizona and Illinois. “With single-level homes and residences with elevators in particularly high demand and short supply, luxury rentals offer a practical and appealing solution with the flexibility and peace of mind to age in place.”
With the number of renter households headed by people 65 and older increasing by more than 1 million between 2019 and 2024, according to a Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies report, boomers are lucrative at both the luxury and affordable ends of the market.
“With the oldest baby boomers turning 80 in 2026—an age when more people turn to renting—a wider range of affordable rental options for older adults will be required to accommodate their changing needs,” the report states. “Renting will be an especially attractive option for older adults who want to age in their community, reduce their maintenance responsibilities, and access the shared spaces for social interaction and accessibility features more common in multifamily buildings.”
