Developments catering to the growing population of seniors are moving forward in Cy-Fair, where demand for memory care services and community programs has intensified over the past year. Several independent living communities opened in 2014, including the Villages at Cypress on Cypress Corner Lane and Fairfield Creek Estates in Fairfield. The high demand was not a surprise for staff at the Villages at Cypress, where more than 800 people signed up to be on the waiting list prior to opening. Construction is underway on another batch of projects expected to open this year, including Avanti at Towne Lake and a Heartis Senior Living community in Cypress, both of which specialize in assisted living and memory care. Avanti opened a welcome center at its Towne Lake site in November to give potential residents a glimpse of a furnished unit and renderings of the community's layout. Other model sites opened throughout the winter, leading up to the community's grand opening this summer. Avanti is using its welcome center to demonstrate how the company is reinventing assisted living, CEO Tim Hekker said. "We plan to give seniors and their families a sense of our philosophy and unique culture," he said. "Residents can pick and choose when they want to participate in activities, when and where they prefer to dine and how they wish to plan their day." Strong demand for assisted living and memory care has led existing senior communities to expand into new territory. The Village on the Park at Steepleway, which has offered independent living services to Cy-Fair seniors for the past 15 years, expanded in February with 20 new one- and two-bedroom assisted living units and 20 private memory care units. "The No. 1 reason we were losing residents was because they needed a higher level of care than what we were offering," said Anthony Ormsbee, director of sales and marketing for Village on the Park. "With baby boomers living longer, people are more aware of the benefits of memory care, so we looked into ways we could provide that in a higher-end setting." Staff has just started accepting the first memory care residents, but the assisted living units are already full, Ormsbee said.