Senior living facilities and apartments part of updated plan presented to City Council

James Kerby of Phin-Ker Ventures, the developer of the property surrounding the Lakeway Regional Medical Center, shared his vision in January for what he says could become one of the nation's premier medical campuses.

As the May opening approaches for the LRMC, a full-service acute care hospital at 100 Medical Parkway, plans for the LRMC campus originally drawn up more than four years ago are beginning to take shape. Kerby attended the Jan. 17 at a Lakeway City Council meeting to give city leaders an overview of the updated plan.

"We want this to be a first-class facility," Kerby said of the campus. "We want Lakeway to be proud of it, and we want to be proud of it."

Lakeway City Council more than four years ago approved a general campus plan that included a hotel, medical office building and retail space on 53 acres of land. AquaLand Development, which was a partnership between Kerby and Mark Smith, purchased the property and took over the project from the original developers in 2009.

Last year, Kerby left AquaLand Development and bought out Smith's interest in the campus project. Kerby then partnered with Kendall Phinney, who owned 13 acres of land adjacent to the LRMC campus property, and formed Phin-Ker Ventures.

"I said, 'Let's combine our tracts and make this one superb development as opposed to one great development,'" Kerby said.

Phin-Ker Ventures updated the campus plan to cover more acres and include an apartment complex and senior living facilities.

Apartment complex

The proposed 250-unit apartment complex would be the first apartment complex in Lakeway and require the city to change the zoning for part of the medical campus.

There is one section of land in Lakeway near the intersection of Serene Hills Drive and Hwy. 71 zoned for apartments, but the property has not been developed, Lakeway City Manager Steve Jones said.

Multiple city leaders have expressed skepticism of an apartment complex on the LRMC campus, saying it could make a bad traffic situation around the hospital even worse.

"I think the apartments might be a little bit of an overkill," Mayor Dave DeOme said.

While Kerby said in January that Phin-Ker Ventures would seek city approval for the apartment complex in the near future, Phinney said Feb. 8 that Phin-Ker Ventures is postponing that for now and is moving forward with other parts of the project. He added that Phin-Ker Ventures is still hoping to get city staff support for an apartment complex and that he believes having hospital employees live in apartments on the campus would help ease traffic in the area.

Senior housing

The medical campus plan includes a 200-bed assisted living facility and 120-room independent living facility.

The assisted living facility would include intensive nursing and Alzheimer's disease care.

Phinney said the area's older, wealthier population makes senior housing facilities a good fit for the medical campus.

According to the 2010 census, 17.9 percent of Lakeway's population is age 64 or older, and the median household income is $97,706. On average in Texas, people above the age of 64 make up 10.3 percent of the population, and the median household income is $48,199.

DeOme said an assisted living facility would make more sense for the campus than an independent living facility, which he believes would essentially be an apartment complex.

"Senior housing, to me, is getting pretty close to being apartment complexes," he said.

Hotel

The proposed 120-room hotel, a La Quinta Inn, would have rooms for people wanting to stay one night and discount rooms for people staying multiple nights, Kerby said. Phinney said Phin-Ker Ventures chose La Quinta because the chain was willing to have the hotel be designed in a style similar to the rest of the campus.

Meanwhile, City Council in February is expected to consider a hotel occupancy tax, which would levy a tax on guests of hotels, motels, and bed and breakfasts in the city limits.

The Lakeway City Council could set the tax between 2 percent and 7 percent without a public vote. The HOT could add up to $9.10 to the average hotel transaction.

If the HOT is approved, a commission of involved stakeholders would manage where the HOT money is spent.

"That's just some more money that would come into that pot," DeOme said of a HOT on the La Quinta.

The rest of the campus

The proposed medical campus also includes two restaurants, a dependency and recovery center and additional medical office buildings that depend on demand.

Kerby said the different facilities will have similar architecture and design to create a coherent look throughout the campus.

The entire campus project is expected to take up to 10 years to develop. The assisted living facility, medical office building, day care facility, hotel and retail corridor are among the first projects Phin-Ker Ventures is looking to build out, Kerby said.

"This is not a project that is going to happen overnight," he said.

Lake Travis Chamber of Commerce President Laura Mitchell said the campus could bring job growth and a boost to the business community.

"It's exciting to see our community grow with development that is needed and wanted to service our growing population," she said.