The Academy, a Merrill Gardens Community, located in a venerable Victorian building in the Gonzaga University neighborhood east of downtown, has been nearly full for a number of years, even through the Great Recession, says Mark Scroggin, the facility’s general manager.

The facility, formerly a Catholic boarding school for girls, located at 1216 N. Superior, has 95 living units and has held steady occupancy rates higher than 95 percent in recent years, Scroggin says.

Largely due to its consistently low vacancy rate, the competitively priced retirement facility has seen revenue growth in recent years, he says.

“We’re doing well and exceeding projections,” Scroggin says. “Revenue has been moving upward because of solid occupancy.”

The Academy has 73 independent-living units in the historic four-story structure and 22 assisted-living units in a connected three-story annex.

Scroggin says vacant rooms typically stay empty only as long as it takes to ready them for new residents.

The Academy is open to residents ages 62 and older. 

The average length of stay is “pretty long for the industry,” Scroggin says. Some residents have lived at the Academy for more than 15 years, he says.

The oldest resident is 101. The resident population includes a few more women than men.

Many Academy residents went to nearby schools or Gonzaga and were already fond of the neighborhood long before they reached retirement age, Scroggin says. Three residents went to high school in the building when it was Holy Names Academy.

Other residents chose The Academy following recommendations from friends and family who had visited or lived in the facility, Scroggin says.

The Academy’s proximity to the Centennial Trail and Mission Park gives the location added appeal, he says.

Independent-living apartments include studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom units and range in size from 400 to 950 square feet of living space. Monthly rates for independent-living units range from $1,695 to $2,795.

Rooms have individual climate controls, and many have large windows with views overlooking the surrounding neighborhood.

Independent-living amenities include weekly housekeeping, active-living programs, scheduled transportation, and 24-hour staff.

Assisted-living apartments—all studio units—range in size from 285 to 380 square feet of living space. Monthly rates for assisted-living units range from $2,200 to $2,300 plus care monthly fees, which range from $265 to $1,590, depending on level of care required.

Assisted-living services include status checks and help with bathing, dressing, grooming, dining, and medication management.

The Academy’s amenities also include cable television, which carries the parent company’s own channel that informs residences of activity schedules and other notices.

The facility provides residents complementary transportation for scheduled shopping, medical appointments, and banking. 

The Academy also schedules regular and seasonal outings to area attractions and locales, such as museums, Green Bluff, and Manito Gardens.

The facility is pet friendly and allows residents to keep cats and dogs weighing up to 50 pounds, as research suggests older adults live healthier when they have pets to take care of and interact with, Scroggin says.

The Academy has a staff of 40, including a nurse who is the assisted-living supervisor.

“We’re all like family here,” he says during a walk-through of the common areas, in which he greets smiling residents by name.

Students from Gonzaga, Rogers High School, and Moody Bible Institute also volunteer their services at the Academy.

Gonzaga’s Kiwanis International affiliate, for instance, puts on an annual formal prom in April.

About two years ago, The Academy changed up its dining schedule to provide “anytime dining” for residents, Scroggin says.

A resident can come and go for meals anytime from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Breakfast is served all day long and lunch and dinner is served starting at 11:30 a.m.

Scroggin says a lot of residents enjoy the freedom of not having a dining schedule that dictates their day.

Many residents visit the dining room early in the day just to see what’s in store for dinner, he says.

Entrée options one day last week included baked salmon, barbecued pork sandwiches, and teriyaki chicken.

Scroggin says the Academy promotes active lifestyles and schedules lots of activities all day long.

Activities include various levels of age-appropriate physical exercise and mental workouts such as word challenges, card games, board games, and trivia games.

“We just started a Wii bowling league with several teams,” he says. The teams compete on Thursdays in virtual bowling using a game console in the Academy’s activity room.

The Academy also schedules opportunities for residents to participate in various arts and crafts projects led by Academy staff or other residents, Scroggin says.

Academy residents are invited to weekly social gatherings that include serving alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.

Earlier this month, The Academy held a Valentine sweetheart social that included cupcake treats. This week, the facility will present a Mardi Gras Casino Night.

“It won’t involve money, but there will be some prizes,” Scroggin says.

Like its residents, The Academy’s building has a lot of character, Scroggin says.

The original building was constructed in 1891, and two wings were added in 1903. The building originally was home to Holy Names Academy, which was both a girl’s high school and a teacher’s school.

The teacher’s school was accredited as a four-year college in 1938, and two years later, the Holy Names College of Education moved just south of the high school into new facilities now occupied by the Maplewood Gardens retirement center.

The annex at The Academy was constructed in 1959.

Holy Names Academy closed in 1975 due to declining enrollment.

Scroggin, who has been involved in the health care industry since 1991, was hired to manage The Academy in late 2011. Being a Spokane native, he was long familiar with the historic building, which was on his newspaper delivery route when he was a teenager.

Private owners transformed the historic building into a non-denominational retirement community in 1988.

In 2003, Seattle-based Merrill Gardens LLC acquired The Academy Retirement and Assisted Living Community. Merrill Gardens, a family-run company founded in 1993, owns and operates 21 senior-living communities in four states.

Scroggin says Merrill Gardens currently has no plans to expand The Academy or change its current ratio of independent-living to assisted-living quarters.