Harmony Senior Services is building seven facilities

Roanoke-based Harmony Senior Services is spending $150 million constructing seven senior living communities in Virginia and South Carolina.

The expansion, scheduled for completion in early 2016, will more than double the corporate footprint of the company. It currently manages six communities in Virginia.

“During the recession, construction of senior housing plummeted, and yet the baby boomers population began to turn 65-plus at a rate of more than 10,000 per day,” Susan Eckert, Harmony’s president, said in a statement. “The care needs of an aging population, combined with a limited supply in new construction created a window of opportunity for us and we pushed forward to meet the growing need for senior housing in the mid-Atlantic and the Southeast regions.”

The first of the seven properties —  a 90-unit assisted-living and memory-care community — is set to open in Blacksburg in early 2015.

The other six communities also are underway:

• A 87-unit community in Columbia, S.C. (offering assisted living and  memory care).
• A 124-unit community in Richmond (independent living).
• A 160-unit community in Chantilly (independent living, assisted living and memory care).
• A 102-unit community in York County (assisted living and memory care).
• A 174-unit community in Suffolk (independent living, assisted living and memory care).
• A 180-unit community in Virginia Beach (independent living, assisted living and memory care).

As the number of facilities grows, Harmony also is adding new management, including Brent D. Russell as senior vice president of operations; Rebecca Smith, vice president of sales and marketing; and Cyndi Brown-Spellman, director of clinical care.

Harmony owns and operates senior living communities for Smith/Packett, a health-care development firm specializing in design, development, and financing.

Founded in 2008, Harmony currently manages facilities in Roanoke, Richmond, Chester, Hampton and Fredericksburg.