Just Sold: Living Suite Senior Care plans to grow by thinking small.

Byline: Anne Bretts

Editor's note: "Just Sold" is a Finance & Commerce feature based on certificates of real estate value recently filed for commercial transactions and significant residential transactions in Twin Cities counties. Additional details in the transactions come from Plat Research, the Minnesota Secretary of State's Office, company documents, online real estate listings, F&C archives, CoStar and other research. Some purchase prices and per-unit calculations have been rounded. Full prices are available on the CRVs posted here.

An entity related to Vadnais Heights-based Living Suite Senior Care has closed on land for its newest project, a 32-unit assisted-living and memory-care facility at 8500 Regent Ave. N. in Brooklyn Park.

Suite Living Senior Care of Brooklyn Park LLC paid Minneapolis-based Washburn McReavy Funeral Chapels Inc. $550,000 for the 1.74-acre site, in a deal that closed Jan. 15. The land is on the northeast corner of Regent Avenue North and 85th Avenue North. City Hall sits on the northwest corner of the intersection and Central Park lies on the southeast corner.

The price works out to $316,092 per acre.

"I got into this by accident," said Joel Larson, CEO of Suite Living Senior Care.

As head of Hampton Cos. in Shoreview, he operates his own real estate, development and construction divisions. He explained that when a condo project in Coon Rapids failed in the recession, he converted it to a 90-unit senior project he still operates as Select Senior Living. As he did more research, he developed a model for small properties, each with 18 units of assisted living and 14 units of memory care. Each property has an L-shaped building, staffed with about 25 employees offering a higher level of care than most assisted-living facilities. Care costs an average of $6,200 per month.

"Suite Living communities focus on caring for high-acuity care residents that do not need skilled nursing care but typically require more care than most senior assisted-living communities provide in the market," Larson said.

Larson uses his construction company to build the facilities. Each building takes about seven months to complete.

Larson opened his first center in Vadnais Heights in 2017 and one in Roseville in 2018. He has buildings under construction in Little Canada and North St. Paul and has plans to break ground this year in Brooklyn Park, Inver Grove Heights, Woodbury, Maple Grove, Anoka, Lake Elmo and Brooklyn Center. All buildings are...