Excerpted from “Green Homes Are So 2010: The Future Is Wellness Communities,” which originally appeared on Realtor.com. View the full Realtor.com article here.
Arizona is usually associated with retirees and spa retreats, not millennials. So when developers planned Rancho Sahuarita with the intent to draw young families looking for a healthy lifestyle, surely there were skeptics. But this 3,000-acre community—with its 17 miles of bike paths and 15-acre lake, just 9 miles south of Tucson—has become a destination for concerts, art fairs, triathlons, and festivals. Homeowners can take yoga, tennis, ballet, or more than 50 other classes a week at the community clubhouse, which provides babysitting. Best of all, they’re all covered by monthly homeowner association dues of $93 per house.
To ensure wellness, Rancho Sahuarita partnered with Carondelet Health Network to operate a primary- and urgent-care facility within the development. Through Carondelet, local doctors offer “Walk with a Doc” and “Lunch and Learn” programs, which allow residents to ask questions they may not feel comfortable asking in a sterile doctor’s office.
Kids are a focus, too. There’s a “walking school bus” providing kids and parents the opportunity to walk everyday to the six on-site schools, and a “Be Well” summer camp offered by Carondelet. All of which has helped make Rancho Sahuarita one of the best-selling master-planned communities in the country, according to the ULI report. Home prices range from $220,000 to $350,000.