Innovative Senior Living Management Group and Well-Known Industry Executive Join Forces with High-Profile, Large-Scale New York Developer & Operating Partner

NEW YORK, March 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Affinitas Life, a New-England-based senior living management company established in 2015, announces today that it has joined forces with New Empire Corp., a family-owned real estate group founded in 1997 by the Zhao family, to create a new residential experience for seniors in retirement under its new brand name of Affinitas Life, a Division of New Empire Corp. and its Vertically Integrated Real Estate Development Platform (www.NECALseniorliving.com). Mr. Zhao will become the Chairman and CEO, and Mr. Santiago will be the President and COO of Affinitas Life.

New Empire also announces today that F. Anthony Santiago, the Founder & CEO of Affinitas Life, has been appointed Chief Operating Officer of New Empire and all of its affiliated divisions and subsidiaries.

To meet the demands of an aging society, Affinitas Life joins with its real estate development partner, New Empire Real Estate Development. Affinitas Life has also engaged the services of Solvere Senior Living as its community operating partner. Collectively and collaboratively these well-established companies will create a new Chapter in the development of Affinitas Life business with the opportunity to instill new life into designs, programs and unique operational prowess that are more in tune with current offerings and the needs of an aging population.

With over 200 years of combined professional experience represented by the vertically integrated divisions of New Empire, Affinitas Life and Solvere; with a staff in excess of 340 professionals; and with the unique internal capability to source, underwrite, design, operate, manage, market and sell real property; Affinitas Life is uniquely positioned to take on the Senior Living industry, turning the conventional notion of Senior Living on its head while simultaneously pioneering a revolutionary new concept and evolving the more traditional notions of Retirement Communities in urban markets.

New Empire has increasingly been recognized as one of the most active and innovative developers in New York City, with offices in Manhattan and Brooklyn, New Empire has a staff of over 300 industry professionals and is a fully vertically integrated business that has successfully renovated, built and developed over 100 mixed-use, residential, rental, condo, and hotel real estate projects, in premier locations, throughout New York City, resulting in over $1.5B in real estate sales. Setting new standards in the real estate industry, New Empire has proven to provide investors with solid returns due to a keen insight of the New York market, while demonstrating the concept of sophisticated urban living.

According to Bentley Zhao, Founder, Chairman & CEO of New Empire Corp:

"Our mission is to deliver high-quality living spaces that bring joy and happiness to society. This partnership with Affinitas Life will now combine our residential development expertise with Affinitas Life's innovative senior living management platform experience to create a new chapter in our company's development and the opportunity to instill new life into our current designs and programs."

"We are also delighted to welcome Anthony into our growing family, said Bentley Zhao. He is a seasoned and trusted leader who consistently delivers results. His strategic prowess and attention to detail make him uniquely qualified to drive strategic prioritization and accountability within New Empire with a laser-focus on operational excellence. I have tremendous confidence in Anthony's ability to align our vision with industry-leading operational practices to drive and extend the next-generation of exceptional market leadership to scale." 

Headquartered in Princeton, NJ, Solvere Senior Living has a staff of over 30 persons, with ongoing operations at ten different properties, and is licensed in major metropolitan states, inclusive of the State of New York. Solvere taps into the talents of an exceptional team of professionals with backgrounds in business, finance, operations, and marketing. Individually, team members have had operational and marketing experience with some of the most highly recognized providers on the national stage including Horizon Bay, Senior Lifestyle Corporation, Benchmark, Atria, Sunrise Senior Living, Manor Care and Beverly Enterprises.

"When I first met with Anthony Santiago in the last Q of 2017, I immediately saw that we shared similar ideologies toward the future of the Senior Housing space. The collaboration between Solvere, New Empire and Affinitas is a testament to the vision of Anthony to see the big picture and his tenacity to merge talents by bringing the key pieces together to complete the canvas that is his vision. I am looking forward to supporting this vision as the operating partner, and I am excited by the dynamic opportunity this synergistic relationship will afford to our company to deploy our expertise and skill set to improve upon an old-school formula for responding to the ever-changing needs of our targeted clientele. The collaborative relationship forged by Affinitas Life, and the incredible accomplishments of each of our core businesses, will dramatically enhance our ability to accomplish our goals and vision for both the immediate future and well beyond." Kristin Kutac Ward, President and Chief Executive Officer of Solvere Senior Living.

Affinitas Life is dedicated to developing innovative properties, products, and services that create aspirational, vibrant, fulfilling, experiences for the clientele it serves. Its unique living environments dramatically improve the health and well-being of communities and the beneficiaries of the services of its strategic partners. Its team members have decades of experience working for and employed by prominent industry businesses, including Atria, Five Star, Holiday Retirement, as well as the NYC Housing Authority. They understand the operations model and have built a leaner and nimbler 21^st-century operating platform to lower expenses, human capital turnover and offer a programmatic and technological differentiator.

According to Anthony Santiago, Founder and CEO of Affinitas Life, "After extensive review, we chose to partner with New Empire and Solvere because they shared our vision of fulfilling an untapped market for seniors, as well as their ability to scale quickly with multiple internal vertically integrated divisions within their core development platform. New Empire's interest in entering the Seniors Housing Asset class aligns perfectly with our long-term tactical and strategic planning expectations."

"I also appreciate the personal opportunity that New Empire presents for me to deploy within the organization the principles and guiding precepts that have been instilled within me after decades of experience in raising capital, repositioning troubled assets in the seniors living asset class, and developing properties in the real estate industry," said Mr. Santiago. "I also appreciate the incredible opportunity that this strategic partnership represents for our company. By taking on the C-Suite role within New Empire, I will be working daily with the CEO Bentley Zhao to help refine the vision and purpose of Affinitas Life and to escalate the trajectory of our company in one of the grandest of MSAs and throughout the country."

The Affinitas Life, New Empire, and Solvere Partnership melds financial strength, decades of real-estate development and Senior Living experience, and a new approach to the Senior Living industry that will transform the way Seniors live, play, and thrive in urban and metropolitan settings. We are already starting to source the due diligence to search for deal flow in the New York and surrounding tri-state MSA for potential development opportunities and to deploy our vision for the next iteration of the future of an aspirational lifestyle in an Affinitas Life Community. Contact us for our investment criteria and appetite, if you have any off-market development opportunities. We plan to start our first project in 2018.

If you would like more information about Affinitas Life, please visit www.NECALseniorliving.com

SOURCE Affinitas Life, LLC