All about life at the grow community in Bainbridge Washington and the surrounding community.

A 5 Minute Lifestyle

Everything your family needs for a healthy, happy lifestyle is within easy distance of Grow Community. Local merchants and grocers, the library, fine cafes and coffee shops, theaters and museums, parks, health clinics and schools … you can reach it all without ever getting behind the wheel.

We call it the “5-minute lifestyle,” and it’s just one of the features that makes Grow such an attractive choice for homebuyers seeking a simpler, more mindful way of living.

You’ll be amazed by all that’s waiting for you, just beyond your doorstep.
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Accessibility, ‘aging in place’ guide Grow Community design

The most comfortable retirement home is your own home.

On this point, older Americans widely agree: three-quarters surveyed say their number one goal is to stay in their own home as long as possible, in the familiar environment of connections, routines, heirlooms, memories, and friendships.

Independent living is a primary concern for both the older generation and their adult children, studies show. As we become older, it does become more difficult to move around the house, this is where some accidents can happen. When living alone, it can be even more dangerous as no one will know if anything does happen. This is why a lot of older people do eventually decide to move into an independent living community, like La Posada, where they can experience the benefits of living alone, whilst also having people on-site to help them if they need it. These communities are often ideal for people who may have retired alone, giving them the opportunity to make new friends and live with minimal help. These communities often come with housing that makes daily living easy and accessible for residents, as they have multiple mobility and accessibility options. For instance, you can see how assisted bathing solutions could help you here.

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“Aging in place” has become the mantra for “baby boomers” and those who follow, describing a long-term goal once aspirational and now, at Grow Community, quite reachable.

“From a real estate perspective, we are seeing that boomer are a group that expects sustainability, community, and simplicity and wishes to live those values,” says Greg Lotakis, Grow Community development manager. “I believe that many of our buyers want to ‘live intentionally in a community,’ and it seems they are choosing to invest in a place where they can enjoy aging in place while living intentionally.”

Maintaining a healthy generational mix is a foundational goal of the Grow project.

Helping residents age in place — and keeping older homeowners an active, vital part of the social blend — guides the layout and amenities. Long-term accessibility is being built into new Grove and Park neighborhoods from the ground up.

That starts with single-level living in most units, keeping bedrooms, kitchen, bathrooms and utility space united on a single floor. Residents will have no cumbersome trips up and downstairs throughout the day.

On the outside, elevators connect underground parking areas with the entryways of each home.

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Asani LLC, hired to develop Grow Community, worked to provide as much of the accessibility options into the design as possible. Features like Walk-in showers large enough for seating, open floor plans with minimal hallways, and taller comfort toilets are standard design elements at Grow Community. These can be enjoyed at any age and have been identified as key to independent living.

Grow Community is in the vanguard among residential projects bringing innovative strategies for independent living to market.

Situated in the heart of Winslow town center, Grow homes are close to grocers, restaurants, merchants and professional services, eliminating the need for regular automobile use.

A community center will allow neighborhood activities, while being flexible enough to fit the communities own programming desires. The eight-acre grounds boast spacious community gardens and gathering places.

Together these amenities fulfill goals identified by Congress in 2006 with reauthorization of the Older Americans Act, which urged locally based initiatives to meet aging citizens’ needs including services, social opportunities and recreation.

“It’s all part of our goal to create an intergenerational community, which has been our thinking from the beginning,” Lotakis says.

Aging in place also makes sense for seniors for whom long-term financial independence is a paramount concern.

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The average cost of residence in an assisted living facility, for one bedroom and single occupancy, is approaching $40,000 per year, the Association for the Advancement of Retired Persons reports – a prohibitive amount for fixed-income seniors, who have already spent years building up equity in their own home.

The multigenerational family under one roof is another American trend.

A significant number of older residents have had a grown son or daughter, often with children of their own, move back in. In these families, the younger generations themselves become a resource for aging in place – not an option if their elders have moved into retirement homes or assisted living facilities.

With spacious two- and three-bedroom floor plans, Grow Community’s new Grove and Park neighborhoods anticipate these needs for a range of homebuyers, beginning with those in middle age who are looking to downsize and settle in for the long term.

For those already in their senior years, Grow Community offers some very good reasons to move just one more time.

Grow ‘hits the Easy button’ for sustainability

It takes a lot of work to make sustainability simple.

But making the choice of a low-impact lifestyle easy for buyers was the goal at Grow Community from the very start.

In an article titled “We Only Have One Planet,” Reserve Magazine explores the history of Washington’s largest planned solar community, and the thoughtful features that have earned it the prestigious One Planet Living certification.

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“We wanted to hit the Easy button for people,” Asani President Greg Lotakis tells the magazine, “so they could get in and just focus on the things we can’t control, which are creating community, enjoying community and enjoying each other.”

Leading elements of Grow’s high-performing homes include rooftop solar arrays, airtight construction and insulation, and nontoxic construction materials, among other low-impact features. Grow homes use 30 to 40 percent less water than a typical Pacific Northwest home, the magazine notes.

It all adds up to a formula for sustainable, intergenerational living. Grow does the hard work, so residents can get on with the fun stuff: living.

“This idea that we can start to create places where generations share space, where elders pass along wisdom, where you have children who are being looked after by friends or grandparents and where young couples or single folks get a chance to live in a community where there’s a mix of support — to us, it’s a recipe for success in the future,” Greg says.

Read the whole story online here.

French TV Feature – A quest for the greenest residential developments

French TV came to town last summer looking for the greenest residential developments in the USA, and their quest led them straight to Grow Community.

Over the course of four busy days, Echo-Logis program host Anthony DaSilva and his crew interviewed Grow residents and the folks from our project developer Asani.

Watch the Echo-Logis half-hour feature here.

Even if you don’t speak French – there are no subtitles, Hélas! – the videography of Grow Community and our Bainbridge/Seattle land-and-seascapes is simply stunning. The Echo-Logis crew made extensive use of aerial photography with a small drone, and the footage is well worth seeing – whether or not you live at Grow, you’ll be reminded why you want to live here.

Thanks again to Anthony and his very talented crew for visiting Bainbridge Island and taking the Grow Community story to the globe. We know your storytelling will inform and inspire!

What’s the Grove all about?

woof3As we welcome our newest residents to the Grove neighborhood, we should pause to reflect on what’s drawing discerning buyers to the latest homes in our award-winning Grow Community.

We promised urban living with nature at every doorstep, and that’s what we’re delivering.

Homeowners in Grove buildings will enjoy close connection to the signature woodland that gives this corner of Grow its name. A mix of native trees and understory will bring the Northwest forest into the very heart of the neighborhood, complementing the fruit trees and gardens thriving elsewhere around the project.

Ultra-efficient home construction, renewable materials and low-impact fixtures promise a healthy lifestyle within each of these 5 Star Built Green homes, while our rooftop solar arrays allow residents to ease their reliance on the grid – and even put power back into it for others to use.

Our generous open spaces and community gardens – inspired by centuries-old European towns, designed around central squares and greens – promote connection and interaction, really putting the “neighbor” in our neighborhoods.

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We put the focus on intergenerational living in the Grove, imagining homes as inviting to a 73 year old as a toddler. Sixty percent of homes will be fully accessible, with convenient single-level living and private elevators from our parking garages that will let residents “age in place” by design. Oh, and about that parking – it’s underground, keeping vehicles off the street and out of sight while letting us preserve so much open space between homes.

Proximity to Winslow’s urban core means local merchants, services and amenities are just steps away along the public paths that radiate out from Grow Community’s neighborhood core.

As the Grove takes final shape and we turn our attention to our third and final neighborhood, the Park (centerpiece: yes, a park), we are proud of what we have accomplished and how our vision has translated in the market.  Most of all we’re delighted for our many new neighbors and friends of Grow Community.

 

It’s move-in day!

The Grove neighborhood has some new faces with the move-in of it’s first residents in the Salal building and Elan townhomes. Here’s a big Grow Community welcome to these newest neighbors! We look forward to meeting you all, and sharing the excitement and satisfaction that comes with settling into your new homes in this amazing community.

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Now selling in the Park: Lilac townhomes and Sage single-level homes

Grow Community’s third and final neighborhood is planned to begin construction in early 2016, with homes now for pre-sale in the Lilac and the Sage buildings.

grow-the-lilacThe Lilac townhomes offer two- and three-bedroom floor plans over two levels, with covered front porches and private back patios for entertaining. Generous natural light filters throughout each home with views of the central parkway that gives the neighborhood its name.

grow-the-sageHomes in the Sage feature single-level, open plans with ample kitchen, dining and living spaces. Floor-to-ceiling windows face the namesake greenway, with inviting decks for entertaining or gardening on all levels.

All residences enjoy the convenience of underground parking, as well as Grow Community’s fine appointments and acclaimed energy-efficient construction.

Remember that you can see these features for yourself at our new model home in the Grove neighborhood. Make an appointment today by contacting our sales team: live@growbainbridge.com or 206.452.6755.

Click here for more information, purchase opportunities, and to reserve your new home in the Park neighborhood.

Très bien! French programme Écho-Logis visits Grow Community for television feature

A film crew from the French production house TV Only visited Grow Community last week, shooting a half-hour feature for the magazine show Écho-Logis.

camera2The program features the best examples of sustainable architecture and construction around the globe – so naturally they found their way to Bainbridge Island and Grow.

“We were looking for the greenest places in the U.S.,” says Anthony Da Silva, TV Only journaliste, who admits that while he and the producers had scouted out Grow Community online and were confident it would make a good subject, they were still startled by what they found.

“When we arrived, we were really surprised that it was much more beautiful than the pictures we saw on the web,” Da Silva says, praising Grow for building not just eco-friendly homes but also a whole simpler, low-impact lifestyle.

“It’s not only putting solar panels up and respecting the landscape where you put your house,” he says. “It’s also a feeling. For me, it’s a system, a way to work and to build and to live.”

The four-man production team spent four days on the island after filming an eco-friendly home in Los Angeles the previous week.

interview1Da Silva interviewed Jonathan Davis, architect of Grow Community’s phase one, the Village, along with project manager Greg Lotakis and various residents.

Interviews were conducted inside homes and around the Grow Community grounds and shared P-patch gardens.

A drone-mounted camera buzzed around the neighborhood throughout, zooming down pathways before soaring skyward for dramatic aerial shots of Grow’s solar energy-producing rooftops.

“It was an honor to have the Écho-Logis film crew here,” Lotakis says. “To be able to share a bit of the vision, and have the community’s voice as part of the show, was wonderful. It was a great reminder of how much has been done here that can inspire other communities.”

Écho-Logis presents “beautiful and innovative green projects all around the world by featuring the people who have conceived it, those who live in and interact with it,” producers say, while showing the environmental advantages that come with “an ethical way of building.”

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After returning to France, the team will decamp for Romania and their next feature: a woodland lodge replete with solar power and a system for recycling water.

Now in its fourth season, the Écho-Logis program can be seen on France’s TV5Monde network, available in more than 200 countries.

The Grow Community feature is expected to run late this year as part of the current 40-episode run.

Previous Écho-Logis episodes can be viewed online here.

See Grow on HouseSmarts TV

Grow Community will be featured on HouseSmarts, the “reality show for real homeowners,” Aug. 1 on KONG-TV in the Seattle area.

The HouseSmarts crew and contractor/host Lou Manfredini (NBC’s Today Show, WGN Radio) visited Grow for a day this past spring and really liked what they saw.

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The popular 30-minute weekly home improvement program “answers the questions homeowners really want to know,” the producers say. “Nobody adds on a room in one weekend, or lets their neighbors decorate their living room. HouseSmarts follows the progress of real people and lessons learned.”

HouseSmarts’ Grow Community segment airs at 10 a.m. Aug. 1.

For information see www.housesmartstv.com, and you can find the KONG-TV programming guide here.

 

Urban Land likes Grow’s common spaces

Grow Community got some more great kudos this week in Urban Land, the online magazine of the prestigious Urban Land Institute.

Grow is honored in the feature article “Growing Sociability: Integrating Communal Spaces with Development,” which looks at “agrihoods” (development-supported agriculture), edible landscaping, and other trends in sustainable community design.

“A new day is dawning in residential development that can serve as a foundation for how people will be living for generations to come,” ULI writes, a comment amplified by a leading architect and town planner.

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Community, the planner says, is the next generation’s golf course – an attractive amenity to build a whole neighborhood around — and developments that include a working farm or agricultural activities are creating new healthy, cohesive communities.

Sounds like Grow! Our project manager Greg Lotakis tells ULI how Grow Community’s shared gardens are the axis around which our first phase, the Village, is organized. And what a draw those gardens are for buyers. The gardens are growing a vast variety of flowers, shrubs, and even some vegetables. The community is coming together and growing things for one another, creating a gorgeous landscape. Some community members have read a backpack leaf blower guide, learning to keep the space nice and clear so that there is a clear division between plants. As you may have guessed, there are a lot of leaves in this space, so being able to clear them with ease is important to the community and keeping this space pristine.

“We have microhoods-six or eight homes that face each other and the community gardens between them,” Greg says. “The neighbors work together and decide what they want to plant – and the gardens have really brought neighbors together. When people come to see the community, they see how lush the garden spaces are and the community interaction they create.”

It’s a great article on this exciting trend in urban planning, all the better for highlighting the success of our own Grow Community. Read the whole story here.