‘field Of Opportunity’: Legend Senior Living Gears Up For More Growth In 2025

The senior living industry is standing at the precipice of a years-long demand cycle – and Legend Senior Living is ready to reap the benefits.

The Wichita-based company has spent the last couple of years building a support structure in order to take on new growth. Now at 65 communities and counting in Florida, Colorado, Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania, Legend has pivoted in the pandemic era from growth via new development to management agreements with large partners including Welltower (NYSE: WELL). 

To achieve that, Legend has bolstered its org chart, including by naming Matt Buchanan, son of CEO Tim Buchanan, as the company’s first president in 2023. Along with that, the operator also has added to its training and employee development efforts.

Like some other senior living operators in 2025, Legend is additionally building out its data and analyses processes. This year, the company is exploring how to roll out a new business intelligence reporting tool to better chronicle its progress and health as a company.

In 2025 as Tim Buchanan surveys the senior living industry, he sees “a field of opportunity” ahead given the industry’s current supply and demand profile.

“The next few years are going to be, I think, exceptionally good, because of the limit of new construction, and absorption will follow,” he told SHN.

But he added that the cycle “won’t last forever,” and thus it is important for operators to be “out in front of it and able to capitalize on the opportunities that come our way.”

For Legend, capturing that opportunity means continuing to work with its partners and finding new opportunities to reinvest in and grow the company’s systems to support new growth.

Building the infrastructure for growth

Legend Senior Living’s path to its current 65-community footprint has had some twists and turns over the years. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, Legend had grown through new development, and owned at least some equity in all of its communities.

When new development became tough after 2020, the operator pivoted to taking on select third-party management opportunities in states where it already had a footprint, such as Pennsylvania. For example, last year Toledo, Ohio-based Welltower bought two communities in the Philadelphia area and tapped Legend to operate them.

Today, Legend still prefers to own equity in the communities it operates, with only about a dozen communities operated under purely third-party management arrangements.

“We’ll always primarily own a piece of our assets,” Tim Buchanan said.

The company has leaned on its reputation as an operator with results in the “upper quartile” of quality compared to its competitors. Maintaining that quality has required reinvesting in the company and its processes over the years.

“We’ve not been afraid of investing money into people and systems ahead of growth,” Tim Buchanan added.

For example, the senior living operator has bolstered its training and employee development teams as it scales up and brings on new associates, including by establishing regional trainers. Thanks to those efforts, Legend’s staffing challenges have eased in recent years, he said.

The company also divides its territories in a way that puts leaders within driving distance of communities in a region. For instance, Legend fits its Pennsylvania operations in two regions within the state, with support centers based in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

“That is an example of our operations strategy … and we’ve done that in every state that we’re in,” Tim Buchanan said.

Building out new business intelligence and data capabilities is a primary goal of many different senior living operators in 2025, including Legend. Since its early days, the company has always had a system where leaders could review different performance metrics on a local level. Now, Tim and Matt Buchanan are bringing to life a new business intelligence tool that will give them a holistic and real-time view of the entire company in one view – a valuable resource given its fast growth.

“[We’re focused on] the way that data is organized to tell a story so that the business leader doesn’t have to piece multiple things together,” Matt Buchanan said.

Like some of its operator peers, Legend also is exploring analytical capabilities – including through AI and data science – to help power its data capabilities.

The company also is in the midst of a next-generation leadership transition that will help propel its current vision into the future. Matt Buchanan said he’s been fortunate to have his father, an established senior living pioneer, as a mentor. And looking down the road, he sees leading Legend as his “personal calling” and the president role represents a “stepping stone” along that journey.

“As we look forward to our future, we can’t forget our roots,” he added.

Matt Buchanan said the company has been fielding many phone calls from owners in acquisition mode looking for operating partners. To that end, the company can be selective about what it takes on in the months and years ahead – and “the wind is at our back,” he said.

Senior living’s next cycle looms

Legend Senior Living’s current strategy and philosophy is rooted in history and Tim Buchanan’s more than three decades of experience leading senior living companies.

He cofounded and was chairman and CEO of Sterling House, which in 1997 merged with Alterra, the company that years later would go on to join forces with Brookdale Senior Living (NYSE). In 2001, Buchanan left Alterra to found Legend, and in the time since then he’s seen multiple real estate cycles come and go.

It’s no secret that the senior living industry is ready to reap high demand for years as the baby boomers move into communities en masse and the rate of newly built senior living communities remains low. And to that end, Tim Buchanan sees an increasingly favorable playing field for operators in 2025 and the next few years.

“There’s hope for new capital, availability of people at every level – from executives down to the down to the caregivers – there’s buildings and businesses that are for sale,” he said.

But the current period of high demand and low supply won’t last forever, and Legend’s leaders are looking down the road to the industry’s next great turning point.

“The optimism and great opportunity will be a cycle,” Tim Buchanan said. “If you look out 10 years, there’s probably going to be another big development cycle.”

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