City Goes After Retirees

By Latoya Silmon, News On 6

BARTLESVILLE, OK -- The City of Bartlesville is campaigning for retirees. It's brought in a developer who will spend more than $40 million to build a state of the art retirement community. The goal is to keep retirees from moving their lives and money to areas like Tulsa.

This isn't your grandmother's nursing home. We're talking about a city within a city with just about every amenity you can think of.

Bartlesville hopes this 21st century approach to retirement living will be a boon for the entire city.

Bartlesville says retirement never looked so good.

"Because of the presence of energy related companies in our community we have a lot of high income retirees in our community and normally where they retire they're saving and investment accounts retire with them," said Jim Fram, Bartlesville Development Corp.

Bartlesville hopes the road to retirement leads right to a field of dreams, about 20 acres that they say is prime real estate and will soon become home to a $43 million project.

It will include independent living with executive homes and luxury apartments, to round the clock for seniors who need it and everything they could want is within walking distance, a library, spa, restaurants, you name it.

For people like Joe Shveima, it sounds like utopia.

"I just recently retired. I retired six months ago and I'm a candidate possibly," said Shveima.

But retirees aren't the only ones who can enjoy the finer things in life.

"What the things we'll be doing is inviting all the people in Bartlesville to come to our community and join us for dinner or come to our wellness center to participate as a member of our fitness center," said Dr. Frank Rees, Jr.

The developers says it's a trend that catching on with retirement communities. It will be a first for Bartlesville and so far it's an easy sell.

"I'm very impressed with what I've seen so far," said Shveima.

If the city approves the project, the developer will break ground next summer. They expect the project to bring in dozen if not hundreds of construction and service jobs.