Blue Skies of Texas will celebrate the 50th anniversary of handing out its first key in 2020. As the community reflects on its five decades of service to San Antonio seniors, there’s also an opportunity to look ahead. What does the future hold for this Life Plan Community? How will it maintain the trusted legacy of Air Force Village while welcoming seniors from all walks of life?
To understand what’s in store for 2020, 2025 and beyond, we spoke with Darrell Jones, CEO of Blue Skies of Texas. Darrell reflected on some of the community’s recent improvements and upgrades and relayed his perspective on how the community will continue fulfilling its vision: redefining excellence in senior living through a relentless pursuit of innovation, service and care.
An eventful decade
A lot of change has come to Blue Skies of Texas since it began as Air Force Village in 1964, and the community has also seen exciting changes over the last ten years. Aside from opening the community to seniors from all walks of life in 2014, the community has made several updates and improvements.
“We’ve expanded the offerings for independent living, built new restaurants, rolled out new menus and have continued to modernize,” Darrell said. “Our dining experiences at both campuses, especially in Cochran’s Bistro and the Sky Lounge [on the 16th floor overlooking San Antonio], rival any modern American casual restaurants.”
In the past few years, besides enhancing one of residents’ favorite parts of the Blue Skies lifestyle—the dining—the community also added a new neighborhood called The Gardens.
Darrell explained, “For The Gardens, which are spacious single-family homes with two-car garages, we partnered with Sitterle Homes, one of San Antonio’s most popular homebuilders. That neighborhood could stand alone as one of the most desirable in the area, but what’s even better is that it includes all the benefits of a Life Plan Community.
“All these recent changes fulfill a fundamental purpose: to make this community an excellent place to live for the people we serve,” he added.
What’s next at Blue Skies of Texas
Reaching the 50th anniversary is a major milestone, of course, but other exciting things are coming to the community in the near future.
“2020 will bring significant upgrades to the homes we offer,” Darrell noted. “We don’t just change carpets and paint before you move in. For many of our floor plans, it’s a complete top-to-bottom remodel, ‘HGTV style.’”
The full home-by-home remodels and constant upgrades are revitalizing the community, which has also necessitated a waitlist for many of the neighborhoods at Blue Skies of Texas. If it wasn’t already clear, now is the time to get in touch about your own custom new home!
Flying into the future
When discussing the longer-term future for Blue Skies of Texas, Darrell is focused on ways that the community aims to innovate and make the best use of its resources, so that it’s simply the best place to retire.
“One of the major changes we’re anticipating in the next five years is determining the best way to use all the acreage we have,” he explained. “We have more than 500 acres at our west campus alone, but we’re not just going to be building more residences. We’re looking at new ways to utilize all our land and involve the broader San Antonio community in everyday life here. It’s a chance to partner with others to introduce new services important to our residents.”
Alongside the exciting potential for the overall environment of the community, some technological innovations are in the works that will account for the changing preferences of today’s tech savvy older adults.
“In terms of new amenities, it’s all about better technology,” Darrell said. “For example, dining touts an interactive tool that will let residents keep track of their nutrition based on everything offered at our restaurants. That’s just one thing, but with technology, the sky is the limit.”
Looking further ahead, but remembering the “why”
Darrell envisions the landscape of retirement living changing as a whole over the next several decades and avows that Blue Skies of Texas will continue to serve everyone—near or far—to the absolute best degree possible.
However, no matter what the future holds for Blue Skies of Texas in relation to 2020, 2025 and far beyond, Darrell reiterated the big picture: the “why.”
“It’s not just focusing on what we do for the people we serve. We have to remember why we do it! Our focus is enabling people to live longer, better, happier lives. Our job is to focus on that and follow through on our promise,” he said.
If the future at Blue Skies of Texas sounds exciting to you and sounds like a future that you’d like to be a part of, we invite you for a personalized visit. Simply click here or call 866-553-5389 to get in touch with our friendly team.
