PFA is investing in the development a community-living complex of up to 30 homes for older people.
Denmark’s largest commercial pension fund said it is investing with the philanthropic association Realdania, which aims to “kickstart” the idea more broadly across the country.
Jesper Brask Fischer, director of PFA Senior Services, said: “PFA and Realdania have joined forces to rethink the senior housing community as a residential property form.”
It is the first time PFA has built residential property for retired people and Realdania’s first private residential community project outside Greater Copenhagen.
The pension fund is targeting the sector as the number of over-60s in Denmark rises. It estimates that 8% of over-60s in Denmark – or around 100,000 people – want to move to senior residential communities.
The community homes in the east Jutland city of Horsens will have total space of 2,400sqm and will be owned by PFA.
A spokesman for PFA would not say how much capital would be invested because it was still at the planning stage.
Anne Skovbro, director of philanthropy at Realdania, said: “Realdania wants to kickstart the market for senior residential communities across the whole country, because we believe this way of living gives older people a better life.”
Preventing loneliness and improving wellbeing among the elderly in Denmark is one of the association’s strategic focuses, PFA said.
Skovbro said the association aimed to work with both private and public-sector parties in the residential property market to develop modern communities with space for many different types of older people, including the less wealthy.
Realdania, whose stated mission is “to improve the quality of life for all by developing the built environment”, was set up in 2000 and now has around €3bn in assets.
The money originates from members’ equity in the Realkredit Denmark mortgage institute, when the institute’s mortgage credit activities were sold to Danske Bank.
