Philip Y. Kao PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText

esidents for one-day plane trips to visit a retirement centre in a neighbouring State.
The ministers and layman interested in the project were so impressed by their visit to
this retirement centre that they decided to model Tacoma Pastures after it.
Before construction could get underway, Joint Church Manors needed to raise $15,000
in order to pay the developer for a feasibility study. A few people were able to donate a
couple thousand dollars collectively, but when they still fell short, Rev. Tate mortgaged
his home for the remaining $9,000. The entire project was going to cost $8,500,000, and
this was financed in various ways. First of all, an initial mortgage was obtained from a
local bank in 1972, covering a large part of the land, building, and furnishing costs.
Additionally, Joint Church Manors offered a series of debentures denominated in $1,000
units, and with various interest payments. Life leases contributed to much of the
funding even before residents were able to move in. In an effort to boost resident
numbers, discounts were offered to early applicants. Early applicants could save 5% on
their life lease fees, and could lock in a rate of $5.50 per day for ‘skilled nursing care’
and $4.50 per day for ‘basic nursing care’ for their first year. 9 Tacoma Pastures held
many dinners and informational sessions. Joint Church Manors sponsored roast beef
dinners in local churches, Christmas parties, and brunches at the Howard Johnson Hotel
in order to get the word out. Tacoma Pastures was billed as an attractive and inspiring
plan of Christian service dedicated to providing a solution to adequate housing for
retirement living.
Actual construction began in February 1972. In its initial form, Tacoma Pastures was a
five-story Y-shaped building located on a wooded and rolling 58-acre site. The entire
complex included two hundred and forty-two individual apartments. Five apartments
were used as early models for the marketing team, though there were sixteen different
apartment sizes to choose from. A two-story solarium connected a three-story/seventybed
health and therapy centre (also referred to as the complete nursing care facility) to
the main residence building. With Tacoma Pastures’s main entrance on the second floor,
the attractive dining room overlooked a lovely wooded area and served as a hub of
9 Life lease fees generally amounted to a payment of roughly $24,000 or the 1972
median price of a house in the Tacoma Pastures’s area. A resident could choose to pay
everything up front, or s/he could pay a fourth of the life lease fee as an entrance fee,
followed by the rest of the life lease fee after moving in.
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