Riding the Gray Wave

June 1, 2010 | 8:00 am ET Staff Reporter

With the recent opening of the Sandy Lake Rehabilitation and Care Center in Coppell, Mason Health owners Craig Kelly and Robert Cramer are riding the gray wave with plans to open another three sites over the next 36 months, with one in the works in North Austin.

Craig, here with Mason Health EVP Marybeth Thomspon, says the firm recently acquired an existing facility in Friendswood, opened a new site in Austin last October, and another in Weatherford last spring. After specializing in buying and selling nursing homes for two decades, he says he's seen "the good, the bad and the ugly" when it comes to industry cycles. For the next 18 months, he says his company will be in a growth phase.

Marybeth tells us the 123-bed, 50k SF licensed skilled nursing, life care and short-term rehab facility uses a hospitality model rather than a hospital setting. Craig says there are 1160 nursing homes in Texas and about half are over 40 years old. The business plan is to develop 15 buildings over 10 years in three primary markets-North Texas, Austin-San Antonio, and the Houston metro area. "We're going to markets with a lot of growth and sophisticated medical communities," he says.

Care center administrator Marilyn Hodges says the main focus now for the Coppell facility is the short-term rehab (with a Wii for some therapies, patients may be fighting their visitors for the remote!)Demographics in the Coppell market favor the generation caring for its parents, Marybeth says, adding that the nursing home age is not as large as the caregiver demographic, but make up one of the fastest-growing age groups. "We're timing for growth. If we waited until the need is there and tried to grab a nail gun and get started then, we couldn't keep up," Craig adds.