It’s a memory care project that wants to look a lot more like a neighborhood than a facility.
The first dementia village in the United States has broken ground in Madison, Wisconsin. Called The Ellen & Peter Johnson Dementia Village at Agrace, the project is based on the Hogeweyk model from the Netherlands, which is designed to create a normal neighborhood instead of a nursing home for people living with severe dementia.
At Hogeweyk, people with dementia live in a small town with independent living quarters, supermarkets, restaurants and theaters, with support from trained professionals. The model has created a “paradigm shift” in memory care and is gaining popularity in Europe, Australia, China and Canada.
Agrace said the Wisconsin village will support the nearly 11 percent of Wisconsinites over age 65 living with Alzheimer’s disease.
“Even with deeply committed caregivers, traditional memory care often limits how fully people can continue to live with purpose, personal choice and variety,” Agrace said in a statement. “The Hogeweyk-inspired model imagines something more: a community designed around living, not just care, where people with dementia can continue to feel the rhythms of real life.”
The Madison campus is planned with a “Main Street USA” look and feel and will include communal housing, a theater, parks and shops.
“Living at this campus will not feel like an institution, we are building individual households that look and feel just like a home,” Agrace president and CEO Lynne Sexten said in a statement. “Residents will have eight housemates, a kitchen, their own bedroom and a living room. All the things that you have in a traditional home today will be replicated here within the village.”
Sexten said the village is designed to keep residents safe while giving them access to a “robust social network.” Each home will have a full-time caretaker, and roommates will be assessed for interests and lifestyle to give them “a real chance at building meaningful relationships.”
“It will look like any regular ranch house in any neighborhood in the U.S.,” Sexten told Realtor.com. “People will cook and clean and live normal lives like they usually do.”
The campus will also host 40 to 50 “day club” members who will not live on-site but will spend the day there for dementia-friendly recreation and support. Caregivers will have their own housing on the campus, and a Grief Support Center will be available for families and caregivers navigating inpatient hospice care with Agrace.
The village will be built on the hospital’s 2.4-hectare campus and cost $40 million. Much of the funding comes from a $30 million community capital campaign called Revolutionizing Life with Dementia, with major support from local philanthropists Ellen and Peter Johnson.
“The need is so incredible, and this project demonstrates that Agrace is a leader in memory care,” the Johnsons said in a statement. “To be able to say that Madison is going to have this extraordinary project is something that the whole community can be very, very proud of and we’re delighted to be a part of it.”
Agrace plans to open the dementia village in the fall of 2027. Sexten told Realtor.com she expects a large wait-list.
“This is an approach whose time has come,” Sexten told Realtor.com. “People with dementia are your neighbors, they are just regular people who need to live in an environment that is a bit different.”
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