This story was originally featured in Skilled Nursing News:
Ignite Medical Resorts is bucking industry trends by bringing newly constructed skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) to market.
The organization recently opened a newly constructed SNF in St. Peters, Missouri, and is set to open another new facility in Batavia, Illinois, on Sept. 18. The Batavia location brings Ignite to 28 locations across six states; the company employs over 3,500 people.
Ground-up construction of new, luxury skilled nursing and rehabilitation facilities presents an opportunity to bring something new to the market, and is worthwhile despite the many challenges involved, Ignite CEO Tim Fields told Skilled Nursing News.
Developing these new sites takes time, some of which is devoted to finding the right area for a new build. The area should have good hospital partners, a bustling community with a good talent pool and, most importantly, enough land to build on, he said.
Fields said ground up construction represents about 25% of Ignite’s portfolio, which is rare among SNF companies. Annual inventory growth for nursing centers was -0.7% and construction versus inventory was at just 0.2% in the second quarter of 2025, according to data from NIC MAP. These numbers are lower than other sectors of senior living and care; for instance, assisted living annual inventory growth stood at 1% and construction versus inventory was 2.6%.
Given the difficulties related to ground-up construction, Ignite has been pursuing acquisitions as well as development to expand, Fields said. For instance, new builds can take two years or more, while acquisitions can be completed within 90 days. Still, he advocates for the value of having a mixed strategy.
“We need to do both strategies,” he said. “We’re still looking at acquiring existing facilities, and we’re still very bullish on new development, and want to continue to do more.”
Overcoming market challenges
The St. Peters project shows how much persistence is required when pursuing development; the project was delayed nearly four years due to financing and construction concerns, Fields said. The project was originally planned in 2022.
“We couldn’t get construction pricing and financing considerations in line to do it the right way,” he said. “We held out and waited until the market course corrected, and thankfully it did, and we were able to get that project completed.”
The Batavia project didn’t face similar challenges, as the project was greenlit after the supply and labor shortages following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ignite has a joint venture with Leo Brown Group. The real estate developer, based in Indianapolis, does a lot of the leg work on finding the right site for construction. Fields said the average lot size is around five acres.
“They help look at market demographics, they help do market studies, and they help with the financing,” he said. “[Ignite] is able to really focus on how we open the building, get it licensed, align to the right hospital systems, physician groups and hire the right employees to make a successful project.”
Missouri and Illinois are both certificate of need states, so while Leo Brown worked to identify the right land parcels and contractors, Ignite worked with the states to get approval for the new builds. One of the biggest obstacles to ground up construction is securing the certificates of need, Fields said.
“There are certain states that have had very restrictive certificate of need rules that make it so that new people cannot come in and build, and cannot be innovative, and cannot put new product in the market,” he said. “And so as we look nationally at where to go build, it really starts with what state we’re building in, because it’s radically different depending on where you
go in the country.”
The need for consumer advocacy
As the NIC MAP survey indicates, Ignite’s efforts at ground up construction are rare in the industry at the moment. This can make advocating for less restrictive certificates of need difficult, Fields said.
“We definitely talk about it with our elected officials when we do have political conversations,” he said, but he emphasized that consumer advocacy is needed to change the status quo.
He said as Baby Boomers age and seek care, they and their caregivers are looking for something different. Their Gen X and millennial children are more tech savvy and likely to look at Google reviews and take virtual tours before coming in person, and Fields believes that the current, aging stock of SNFs will not impress them.
“They want to make sure that they have the best of the best, and I think they’re looking for stuff like this,” he said, referring to new builds. “Sometimes the word ‘nursing home’ has a negative connotation or negative stereotype. When you walk into a medical resort, you don’t have that. We can immediately course correct any stereotype, issue, fear or grief that they have about their mom or dad from the second they walk in the door.”
Luxury baked into design
In a June interview with Skilled Nursing News, Fields described Ignite’s care model as “a blend of boutique hotel and inpatient rehab hospital with the culture of Disney.” The buildings include cafes serving Starbucks coffee, chef-prepared meals, state of the art rehabilitation facilities and concierge services for residents and their families.
“It starts with a really inviting first impression, and that for us is the lobby,” Fields said. “The lobbies are usually two stories in height. They’re very spacious. It looks more like a boutique hotel when you walk in, not like an institutional care facility. We normally put therapy up front, with glass around the therapy gym. You want to see life and people moving when you walk in the facility. Our therapy gyms are usually around 5,000 square feet.”
Ignite focuses on short-term rehab for a variety of conditions, including cardiac rehab. The gyms are stocked with innovative technology, including the robotic Andago therapy device for gait training. The company also uses virtual reality from OmniVR, which helps with everything from fall prevention to COPD management.
Another key component is the decor, Fields said. Ignite focuses on a boutique hotel feeling, using warm colors on the walls and luxury fabrics in furnishings. Every room in an Ignite SNF is private with attached bathrooms.
But the real power of Ignite is in the staff, Fields said.
“A facility is a facility until people are in it. I think we hire really good staff that care about helping get people better and back home,” he said. “They usually have a good smile on their face. They’re in Ignite scrubs, they’re always willing to help.”
