Rancho Mission Viejo, a 23,000-acre master-planned community in South Orange County, hosted a one-of-a-kind event in partnership with the Urban Land Institute Orange County/Inland Empire (ULI OC/IE) last week for a timely conversation about the role home and community development have on health and well-being
This was the first event to take place at Rancho Mission Viejo’s new state-of-the-art, Ranch Camp at Rienda. Ranch Camp is the centerpiece recreational amenity that features the 20,000-square-foot Ranch Cove, open-air fitness center/lap pool, trailhead and a three-acre visitor’s center that showcases The Ranch heritage, preservation of land, builder product and The Ranch lifestyle for all ages and 55+.
“We were honored to be able to host this ULI event at Ranch Camp, our new amenity that prioritizes well-being with outdoor experiences, improves our quality of living, and brings the community together,” said Paul Johnson, executive vice president of community development, Rancho Mission Viejo. “It’s crucial we continue to have conversations about how to enhance well-being for not only our residents on The Ranch but the Orange County community in general.”
Speakers included Randall Lewis, partner at Lewis Group of Companies and Teri Slavik-Tsuyuki, co-chair of the Global Wellness Institute’s (GWI) Wellness Communities & Real Estate initiative.
“Everyone in our industry needs to pay extra attention to building health, well-being, and sustainability into our residential communities. These factors are becoming more and more important to our customers. People are looking for more than shelter when they choose a place to live and we believe health, well-being, sustainability, and a sense of community can greatly help the lives of our customers,” said Lewis.
Lewis spoke in more depth about his personal donation of $10 million, the largest single donation in ULI history, to establish the ULI Randall Lewis Center for Sustainability in Real Estate, along with the challenges and opportunities we face as we work to implement and address sustainability issues in our industry.
“Randall has been deeply committed to ULI’s work on health and social equity for many years. With his historic new gift to ULI, he has underscored the essential intersections of health, sustainability, and resilience, and provided a foundation for ULI to deepen its impact,” said Rachel MacCleery, senior vice president of ULI’s Building Healthy Places Initiative, in from Washington, DC for the event.
Slavik-Tsuyuki shared the GWI Wellness Communities & Real Estate initiative’s framework for the creation of wellness communities and real estate, inspiring other developers to think about how they too can implement this framework and design communities to improve quality of life.
“In the last couple of years, more people are aware that health and well-being outcomes are a direct result of the environments where we live, recreate, and now, work remotely,” said Slavik-Tsuyuki. “The Ranch is just one example of a community that encourages holistic well-being for residents, supports social engagement, and presents the opportunity to interact with people at varying stages of life. Understanding how both homes and neighborhoods can increase personal wellness is key to GWI’s mission of empowering wellness worldwide.”
