Residents of the sprawling 34-acre Riverview Retirement Community have plenty of space to spend their days dancing, swimming, woodworking, or simply enjoying a cup of coffee at the campus bistro, says CEO Danie Monaghan. 

Monaghan says the community’s spirit and personality is defined by its Spokane roots. 

The community’s population is made up of working-class retirees such as teachers, nurses, and farmers, she says.

“The people who live here were raised here. Their children are here, and they only want their dollar spent here,” she says. “We really try to harness that spirit and embrace our city and where we’re from.” 

The homage to the Inland Northwest is reflected in the interior design of the space, featuring walls decorated with images of the region’s rivers and scenery. 

As a nonprofit organization, Riverview reinvests its income in facility improvements, she says. Such projects include a $7 million memory care facility for residents with dementia, which was completed in 2019, and a nearly $5 million aquatic center equipped with a therapy pool, a lap pool, a hot tub, and a lazy river, completed in 2013. 

Most recently, Riverview is working to rebrand the community’s bistro to a more contemporary coffeehouse, says Monaghan. Dubbed Riverbrew, the coffeehouse will roast its coffee and have Riverbrew merchandise for sale, she says. While not a large source of revenue, the investment into the café provides residents with a cozy atmosphere and an opportunity to share it with others, she says. 

“Honestly, (the café) stays afloat because of our employees,” she says. “It’ll be nice for our residents to come in and get a little gift for someone—some roasted coffee, a coffee card, or a mug.”

Established in 1959 by the Spokane Lutheran community, Riverview Retirement Community is located at 1801 E. Upriver Drive, along the Spokane River and Centennial Trail in Spokane’s Logan neighborhood. It is home to 400 residents and has 165 full-time employees. 

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Riverview Retirement Community had a skilled nursing unit that was forced to close in June of 2020 due to the facility's shared ventilation system that potentially could have spread the virus to other residents, says Monaghan. About 40 rooms are now office and meeting spaces but eventually will be repurposed for residents, she says. 

Riverview is a Life Plan Community that offers three types of accommodations at Riverview Village, Riverview Terrace, and Riverview Memory Care. 

Riverview Village is made up of 163 independent-living homes on the Riverview campus, along Crescent Avenue, says Monaghan. Designed for independent adults 55 and over, the village offers floor plans that range from 1,030 square feet up to 2,300 square feet. 

Prices range from $329,000 to about $600,000, says Monaghan. When a resident dies or moves to a higher level of care, they or their heirs receive 80% of their initial payment. 

The monthly association fee for Riverview Village ranges from $1,402 for one resident to $1,769 for two residents. The monthly association fee covers water, sewer, and garbage services, as well as groundskeeping, structural insurance, security, snow removal, aquatics and fitness center access, and daily programs and activities. 

 “We have residents who have been there since the '90s," she says. 

Riverview Village residents also have access to the community’s amenities, such as raised beds for gardening that feature rosebushes dating back to the center’s founding. Residents eat what they grow and donate any surplus to the Women’s & Children’s Free Restaurant, in Spokane’s West Central neighborhood. This year, the garden will have beehives with a resident beekeeper. 

 At the Riverview Retirement Community woodshop, residents have access to a skilled on-site professional who trains aspiring woodworkers on safety and beginner-to-expert techniques. Riverview Presents is the community’s entertainment program that hosts special guests and artists at the facility's chapel, such as Zuill Bailey, an internationally renowned cellist and director of the Northwest Bach Festival. 

“He performs here usually about two times per year for our residents,” says Monaghan. 

Riverview Terrace offers assisted-living dwellings ranging from traditional studio apartments to deluxe two-bedroom apartments. Pricing per month starts at $3,541 and goes up to $7,817. Residents in assisted living have access to the community’s full range of amenities. The monthly assisted-living services fee includes wheelchair escorts, walking assistance, bathing, dressing, and medication assistance. Other ancillary amenities, such as a monthly pet charge, laundry service, nail care services, and massage therapy, are extra. 

The Memory Care Center is a 20,000-square-foot facility dedicated to the care of 35 residents with dementia. Completed in 2019, the addition to Riverview Retirement Community is designed with visual and tactile wayfinding cues and accessories to help residents navigate their surroundings. 

The facility has only one large 20-foot-wide hallway with bedrooms along one side of the hallway, and recreation rooms, lounge space, an 18-foot aquarium with colorful fish, and a dining area on the other side of the hallway. Pieces of furniture outside residents’ rooms vary in texture from fuzzy surfaces to corduroy, and the walls have bright-colored paintings of Spokane’s landscapes–all designed to assist memory care residents, says Monaghan. 

Residents who need assistance covering costs, such as for a haircut, a concert outing, or a piece of durable medical equipment, can apply to the Riverview Resident Assistance Foundation, says Monaghan. 

The foundation takes donations from the wider public but also is funded by the residents themselves. For example, the proceeds from wooden figurines, cutting boards, birdhouses, pens, bowls, and other hand-crafted wares created by the community’s woodworkers go toward the foundation. 

Lanny Burrill, a retired teacher and Air Force veteran, spends his days making wood carvings, many of which are then donated to the foundation. His favorite project is pocket-size wooden hearts that he donates by the hundreds to local Spokane School counselors to give to kids having a hard day. His hobby and fascination with making hearts and giving them away to strangers began years before he moved to Riverview nearly a decade ago. He estimates he has made about 35,000 pocket-size hearts over the years. 

“People are shocked because I usually say to them, 'They told me you are heartless,' then hand them a heart,” he says. “I never tire of giving them away.” 

Monaghan says Burrill is known as the ‘heart guy,’ and anybody who sees one of the wooden hearts already knows it was made by him. 

“We say in the office, you don’t live in Spokane until you have a heart,” she says.