Cathedral Village joins Presbyterian Senior Living

Cathedral Village, a continuing-care retirement community in the Andorra section of Philadelphia, has agreed to join Presbyterian Senior Living, a bondholder disclosure notice said Thursday.

The affiliation agreement between the two nonprofits was signed Monday, the disclosure said. Typically in such nonprofit agreements, money doesn't change hands.

Presbyterian Senior Living, based in Dillsburg, Pa., south of Harrisburg, operates 30 retirement communities in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Ohio and provides services to 6,000 seniors.

Presbyterian, the nation's 11th-largest nonprofit senior living organization, had operating income of $13.8 million on revenue of $205.2 million in 2013, according to the organization's most recent publicly available audited financial statement.

Cathedral Village, by contrast, had an operating loss of $482,405 on revenue of $24.2 million in the year ended June 30. In the six months ended Dec. 31, Cathedral Village the operating loss was greater, $682,980, up from a loss of $120,176 in the same period the previous year.

Dennis Koza, president and chief executive of Cathedral Village, said the losses were not a factor in the decision to join Presbyterian Senior Living.

"One of the bigger factors was the long-term requirements for communities like ours," Koza said.

"What they bring to us is a tremendous amount of technology that we as a stand-alone community can't provide," he said, naming health-care, payroll, and marketing systems as examples.

Koza said Presbyterian operates at more than 90 percent occupancy, compared with about 80 percent at Cathedral Village.

Opened in 1979 with the support of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, the independent Cathedral Village has 293 apartments and a 133-bed nursing home, which was recently renovated with the help of a $4.2 million bank loan. A short-term rehabilitation unit was added in the hope of bringing more Medicare revenue.

The deal between Presbyterian Senior Living and Cathedral Living continues the consolidation of the senior-living industry.

Last year, for example, Martins Run, a continuing-care retirement community in Marple Township, announced plans to join Wesley Enhanced Living, a senior-living provider with eight communities in Bucks, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties.

Deer Meadows Retirement Community, a nonprofit in Northeast Philadelphia, was sold out of bankruptcy in December for $30.5 million to Investment 360 L.L.C., a for-profit firm in Lakewood, N.J.

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