Edgemere reaches higher occupancy rates after filing for bankruptcy in 2022.
Neal Franklin, Dallas Morning News, May 2026
The luxury retirement community Edgemere repeatedly made headlines back in 2022 as it slid into financial troubles. One of those bankruptcy headlines reached Donna Powers as she was on her way to Edgemere.
She had recently sold her home in McKinney to move to the retirement community where she would be closer to her son and granddaughter.
“I saw the front page — pretty startling — and my phone rang,” Powers said. “It was my son. He said, ‘Don’t worry Mom, it’s all going to be OK.’ ”
A few years later — while playing mahjong in Edgemere’s game room — Powers said her son was right. Throughout a difficult period in Edgemere’s financial history, Powers said residents had a positive attitude and tried to make the best of the situation.
Following the community’s bankruptcy and sinking occupancy rates, Edgemere is under new ownership and has achieved higher occupancy rates. The community’s road to recovery involved restructuring its financial model, rehabilitating units and building back demand.
Under new management
Edgemere is a retirement community just outside of University Park modeled in the style of Italian villas.
The luxury community is known for its amenities, including a formal dining hall called the Medici. The 16-acre property has other collections of amenities like a putting green, a pool and other features.
The community has been recognized among the top 10 best continuing care retirement communities in the U.S., according to Newsweek. But while Edgemere has had successes, the community has faced significant financial challenges.
The retirement community filed for bankruptcy in April 2022, citing financial pressures from the COVID-19 pandemic, insurance increases as a result of an ice storm and competition from lower-cost options in Dallas. As it filed for bankruptcy, Edgemere also sued its landlord and a private equity firm for allegedly trying to make a profit by trying to acquire the community and turn it into a senior living rental community.
Portions of the legal dispute were dismissed on Wednesday after being transferred from the Northern District of Texas to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, according to court filings. Jamil Alibhai, a lawyer for the landlord Intercity Investments Inc., said the case is going to trial on May 26 and that, because of the pending litigation, Intercity couldn’t comment further.
At the time of the bankruptcy, Edgemere was owned by Lifespace Communities Inc., a company that owns senior living communities across seven states including sites in Amarillo, Austin and Tyler.
Ahead of the bankruptcy, the company fell below a requirement to keep 150 days of cash on hand and instead reported only 62 days worth of cash at the end of December 2022, according to a filing with Electronic Municipal Market Access.
Edgemere’s struggles led it to enter bankruptcy and be put up for auction. Following a year of uncertainty, the luxury senior living community was bought by Bay 9 Holdings LLC — an affiliate of the Denver-based Lapis Advisers LP — in June 2023 for about $48.5 million, The Dallas Morning News reported in 2023.
Basia Terrell, a managing director with Lapis, said the company feels honored to become the stewards of Edgemere, calling it a gem of senior living facilities.
The community faced an unfortunate set of circumstances, including the pandemic, Terrell said. The company’s focus has been to improve the units and daily life of the community. Most of that effort has already taken place, she said. The community is profitable and is expecting at least $55 million in revenue this year, Terrell said.
At first, Edgemere was managed by a company called Long Hill following the ownership change, but changed to Certus Living in August 2024.
Under new ownership and management, the community has grown its occupancy levels, and it has restructured. William Haase, CEO of Certus Living, said the growth has been rapid.
“It’s been a quick snap back and just the vibrancy, the culture, the community, everything there is just thriving,” Haase said. “And as far back as I can look, we are achieving occupancy levels that Edgemere has never seen before, even after it was built 20-plus years ago.”
Occupancy rebound
Falling occupancy rates led to Edgemere’s financial troubles. Rising occupancy rates signal a more financially stable community.
Occupancy rates have risen across most of Edgemere’s different living options — independent living, assisted living, memory care and skilled nursing — following the bankruptcy. The community has about 300 independent living units and another 200 units across the other levels of care.
From 2019 to 2021, occupancy rates declined in all four sections.
In 2021, Edgemere’s independent living apartments had an occupancy rate of 74.4%, according to a Lifespace Communities report. Meanwhile, all other sections had occupancy rates below 55%.
The community has rebounded since then, reaching an occupancy level of 93% in independent living — which has the most residents — a rate of 95.6% in assisted living and 86.7% in memory care, according to Certus. Skilled nursing had an occupancy rate of 64.4%.
Haase said he thinks the increase is attributable to the strength of the Dallas market, a demographic shift where the population is getting older, and the reinvigoration of the culture and quality of care of the community.
The turnaround is notable because of Edgemere’s significance within the industry, Haase said.
“Edgemere is one of the largest, most prestigious senior care communities in the country, and it went through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy,” Haase said. “And in the past year and a half, we have now nearly fully occupied the entire community.”
Life care vs. renting
Following its bankruptcy, Edgemere’s largest change involved switching from a life care model to a rental model.
Edgemere had operated under a system where residents would pay entrance fees that ranged between $345,000 to $1.4 million and monthly service fees started at about $4,000 a month, above rates at other continuing care communities in the Dallas market, according to previous reporting from The News.
Additionally, the majority of the initial payments made by residents would be repaid to the resident or their estate whenever someone moved out or died. The exact repayment percentage would depend on the agreement.
“But that’s subject to having the unit resold into the market, and that is in part which caused the financial challenges that led to the bankruptcy filing that concluded in 2023,” Haase said.
Edgemere wasn’t the only property to struggle with a business model that required hefty entrance fees to secure care for life and a contract promising a deposit refund.
Three other Texas properties with similar business models filed for bankruptcy from 2019 to 2021 — the Mirador in Corpus Christi, the Stayton at Museum Way in Fort Worth and the Buckingham in Houston.
Under new ownership, Edgemere switched to a rental pricing model where costs start at about $4,900 per month for independent living and increase from there depending on the level of care people need, according to Edgemere.
Paying back residents’ deposits can mean large sums of money for expensive communities like Edgemere, said Teresa Bates, the executive director of Edgemere, who had worked at the community previously and returned as director in 2022.
“Where if you’re in a rental and you’re not having to pay back that money every time you can be profitable at about 85% occupied,” Bates said. “Where if you’re in a life care, you really have to maintain 95% occupancy all the time to be profitable.”
Trust and the process
In the middle of bankruptcy proceedings, Edgemere’s occupancy recovery didn’t always seem like a foregone conclusion.
Erle Nye was part of a committee representing unsecured creditors for the bankruptcy process. He said he saw the landlord and owner argue in front of the court about the future of Edgemere at a time when many residents were worried.
“I had ladies here, widows mostly, who were desperately afraid,” he said. “The articles in the paper suggested it was a sinking ship, and they could see themselves on the curb with a suitcase in their nightcap.”
Nye said it was clear the court was going to give everyone a fair chance. Negotiations to pay deposits to residents went on for about nine months. Initial deals had smaller deposit amounts, but they worked on a settlement that would include the full amount.
As part of the bankruptcy filing, the Edgemere Residents Trust was created to administer the deposit refunds.
As part of the settlement, Lifespace agreed to pay $143.4 million to the residents’ trust over 18 years, according to a yearly report.
Steve McCartin, the trustee of the residents’ trust, said the trust has paid 173 claims and has dispersed about $84 million to residents.
A large part of the trust was paid upfront for past due refunds, he said. More deposit refunds will be triggered as people leave the community, and the 18-year timeline is meant to account for when people will vacate Edgemere.
Waiting years
Residents and their descendants didn’t get their deposits back immediately after the bankruptcy. For some, the wait has been a long one.
When Edgemere was nearing its bankruptcy, Jay Thomas, and her husband, William, said they had been waiting to receive the deposit refund for years.
Her father, John Stallings, moved out of his independent living apartment in 2019 and died in February 2020. Stallings paid a deposit of about $326,000 to reserve a spot in the community, 90% of which would be refunded to him or his estate when he moved out or died.
When the Thomases spoke to The News in 2022, they said they weren’t sure they would ever see that money again.
But their family eventually received the refund — about $293,400, per the contract — in the spring of 2025, about five years later.
Ahead of the bankruptcy, Jay Thomas said there was a community of people who hadn’t received their refunds who would reach out asking if others had gotten their money back.
The Thomases said they had problems communicating with Edgemere to receive the refund. Their calls would often go unreturned.
However, the bottom line is they got their money back, William Thomas said.
“All things considered, when you go into a bankruptcy situation, that isn’t always the case,” he said. “And we got everything back that we were supposed to get.”
Life at Edgemere
Edgemere didn’t just restructure its finances, it also rebuilt.
About 130 units in independent living were renovated and units in higher levels of care have been refreshed as people move in, according to Certus. Parts of Edgemere’s stucco-style exterior are also being rebuilt.
But many things have stayed the same, and Edgemere has continued to include amenities and activities for its residents.
The retirement home has a pool, sauna, fitness center and fine dining opportunities. The community also added a golf simulator and introduced floating meditation sessions in its pool.
On any given Friday, Edgemere hosts a happy hour, often complete with a live band and a dance stage where professional dancers will take to the floor with residents.
Edgemere has also worked on new community events like an annual Parkinson’s Walk, which took place in April in partnership with the Dallas Area Parkinson Society and raised awareness for the neurological disease.
Following Edgemere’s bankruptcy, its conversion to a rental community and new ownership, residents are trying to help support the new owner and keep up Edgemere and its amenities, Nye said.
“We’re going to help the new owner everywhere we can, we’re going to be because it’s a great place to live, ranked No. 2 in the country at one time,” Nye said. “It’s not inexpensive, but it’s well run and you have every benefit.”