First company awarded Fitwel Certification in Senior Housing for Occupant Health & Wellness

The Springs at Greer Gardens in Eugene, Ore., is the first property to earn a Fitwel global health certification under the newly created senior housing scorecard.

The company met stringent health and wellness requirements regarding its design and operations to earn the designation. Fitwel, operated by the Center for Active Design, provides a blueprint of evidence-based guidelines for supporting better health and wellness outcomes at senior living communities.

The senior housing scorecard was developed with input from several leading senior living operators. Fitwel certifies the health and well-being credentials of multi-use residential, single tenant, commercial, industrial, retail, and senior housing buildings and their surroundings.

Certification is based on criteria that includes operational policies for indoor air quality, cleaning practices, design strategies, access to green spaces, and amenities such as fitness centers and walking trails. Fitwel’s senior housing scorecard evaluates more than 70 evidence-based design and operational strategies to enhance buildings by addressing a broad range of health behaviors and risks.

New York City has two very large buildings dedicated to answering the 911 calls of its five boroughs. With more than 11 million emergency calls annually, it makes perfect sense. The second of these buildings, the Public Safety Answering Center II (PSAC II) is located on a nine-acre parcel of land in the Bronx. It’s an imposing 450,000 square-foot structure—a 240-foot-wide by 240-foot-tall cube. The gleaming aluminum cube risesthe equivalent of 24 stories from behind a grassy berm, projecting the unlikely impression that it might actually be floating. Like most visually striking structures, the building has drawn as much scorn as it has admiration.