A year after its first residents moved into Opus Newton, the senior living community on Winchester Street is fully occupied, with its creators pointing to the project as a potential model for addressing two increasingly pressing issues: the lack of housing options for middle-income older adults and the need to make more housing available to younger families.
The developer, 2Life Communities, celebrated Opus Newton’s first anniversary on August 25 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by federal, state, and local officials, as well as residents and staff. The six-story community has 172 one- and two-bedroom apartments and is designed for older adults who fall into what 2Life calls the “forgotten middle” – people who have too much income to qualify for subsidized senior housing but may not be able to afford traditional Continuing Care Retirement Communities.
The project was more than a decade in the making. And it now has a wait-list of 300 people.
“This has been a dream for me for 25 years, for 2Life, for 12 years,” said Amy Schectman, CEO of 2Life Communities, during the ceremony. “And in my wildest, craziest imagination, I never could have picked the people who were moving in here, because they so exemplified the best of the best of the best.”
Opus residents began moving in September 15, 2025. According to 2Life, the community reached 100% occupancy during its first year.
The model is built around keeping monthly costs lower, in part by having residents contribute to the community through volunteer work. Residents are expected to volunteer at least 10 hours each month.
The community also incorporates pay-as-you-go health care and home care services, allowing residents to receive support as their needs change without having to move from their homes.
For Schectman, however, the most important part of Opus may be what happens among the residents.
“This was a long journey and a dream for 2Life, and it was built on 65 years of expertise and learning, from our residents and our phenomenal staff, on what it takes to help people thrive with connection and purpose in affordable communities,” she said.
The project’s development also depended on local political support. Schectman credited former Mayor Ruthanne Fuller with being an early and forceful supporter, while also praising former City Councilor Rick Lipof for helping secure local approval ahead of schedule.
State Representatives John Lawn and Amy Mah Sangiolo presented a State Legislature citation recognizing Opus Newton on behalf of Newton’s House delegation, which also includes State Representative Greg Schwartz.
Mayor Marc Laredo said, “This is an amazing alternative we need in the city of Newton so we can provide housing and opportunities for folks at every step of the way from birth to older age.”
A model for the “forgotten middle”
Congressman Jake Auchincloss called Opus a “national model born here in Newton.”
Auchincloss sees this type of “dignified retirement” as a way to contribute to the broader housing market. Many residents moved to Opus after selling their homes, he noted, which may return those single-family homes to the market for younger families.
Auchincloss said, “That type of recycling of the housing stock to make way for new families, for whom that big house does make sense, is a really critical part of expanding housing supply.”
State Sen. Cynthia Creem said the project addresses a gap in housing policy that often goes overlooked.
“In so many areas that I serve in the Senate, the forgotten middle, everybody has an idea how to do some taxes for the rich, how to bring the people up who are low-income, how to deal with the wealth divide, and no one talks about the forgotten middle,” Sen. Creem said.
For Lizbeth Heyer, 2Life’s current president and incoming CEO, the demand for Opus shows that the model is addressing a significant gap in the senior housing market.
“The success of this community and the high demand for this community just underscores how important Opus and the Opus model are to older adults in this area,” Heyer said. “Seventy percent of them don’t have enough to afford the high-end stuff that’s out there on the market.”
Residents build the community
For Opus residents, the model is not just about affordability. It is about creating a community that residents actively shape.
Toby Dondis, who moved to Opus with her husband, Barry, after downsizing from their Newton home, said they wanted to remain in Newton but did not want to simply move into an apartment without a sense of community.
“We were lucky to find Opus,” she said during the ceremony. “It was the perfect place for our major transition.”
The couple participates in volunteer work by helping at the front desk, setting up the resident library, and working with Newton’s Welcome Home to provide household items to families experiencing hardship.
“Volunteering adds a special dimension to our lives at Opus,” Dondis said.
Heyer said residents have embraced that responsibility even more enthusiastically than 2Life expected.
“It’s all about the people. The residents really make this place spark,” Heyer said. “I thought it would be more about the success of the staff, and there’s some element of that, but it’s really the residents themselves.”
“Honestly, with the volunteer program, we can’t keep up with the residents,” Heyer said. “We have a full-time volunteer coordinator, and she can’t keep up with them. People take their 10 hours a month very seriously. They love it. It’s part of what made them want to be here, and it’s certainly part of what makes them want to stay here.”
Laura Efron, chair of the Opus board, said the volunteer component was one of the aspects of the project she was particularly excited to see take shape. She said, “It’s really special. They all really enjoy getting involved.”
Judy Friedman, an Opus resident, said the people she has met have become one of the most meaningful parts of living there.
“I just feel extremely fortunate to be here,” Friedman said. “What do I like best? The people. The people are amazing. …There’s an embracing of different kinds of lifestyles and different kinds of people, and everybody’s welcome,” she said. “I could not have imagined this beforehand.”
That sense of community extends beyond organized activities. Friedman described an informal network in which residents ask each other for assistance with rides, advice, and other friendly help. She recalled one woman who was going to the hospital and “probably got five or six people responding to take her there early in the morning.”
Friedman said, “It isn’t just top-down leadership. Residents have a say. They are on all these committees, and mostly I feel like there’s cooperation and listening. Even if we don’t get everything that we want, I feel like we’ve been listened to.”
Friedman also participates in Opus Focus, a weekly gathering where residents discuss prompts in small groups.
“It’s a time for people to come together,” Friedman said. “We’re all in a big circle, and it’s facilitated. There are usually 40 to 60 people.”
She said the community’s physical spaces, activities, and relationships all contribute to the experience.
“The things that are happening here, exercise, meditation, talking with people and with groups, the walks around here, they all contribute,” she said.
Mary Beth and Nancy, a married couple who have been together for 47 years, told the event crowd they had worried about what their options would be as they grew older. They are middle-income, do not have children, and wanted a community that would welcome them as members of the LGBTQ+ community.
“We are now home,” Mary Beth said. “We feel grateful to have discovered this beautiful, friendly Opus community.”
Nancy said 2Life’s outreach to the LGBTQ+ community was one of the things that attracted them to Opus.
“We loved it when the marketing people deliberately reached out to the LGBTQ community,” she said. “That’s not something that happens every day.”
The couple began attending Opus marketing meetings years before the building opened, eventually meeting other prospective residents and forming relationships before they even moved in. By the time they arrived, Nancy said, “I felt like I had known people forever.”
Keeping the model affordable
The project’s affordability is tied to how services and amenities are structured.
Efron said Opus was designed differently from many traditional Continuing Care Retirement Communities, where residents may pay significantly more upfront for a package that includes meals and other services.
“The pricing for these units was set so that it could be affordable for people who are in the middle market,” Efron said.
“We tried to do the meal plan a little bit more restricted,” she said, describing Opus’ café, grab-and-go options, and scheduled meals.
The resident volunteer model also helps contribute to the community’s operations, Efron said, allowing residents to take an active role in programming and other activities.
Heyer said the financial model is designed to work without the type of public subsidy typically associated with affordable housing.
“Each site has its own formula,” she said. “But the bottom line is the cost to build has to equal what the Greater Boston middle market can afford to pay to live here, because there aren’t public subsidies.”
“There’s a tremendous amount of public support in the model, but there isn’t subsidy in the same way you find in other affordable housing,” Heyer said. “It’s all private.”
Kathy McGilvray, executive vice president of finance programs at MassDevelopment, said the state agency provided $129 million of tax-exempt bond financing for the project, effectively lowering the cost of capital – “making the project come to life,” she said.
“We’ve really figured out how to stretch the middle market’s fixed dollars in a way that really turns on all this magic for them and provides housing affordability, plus connected and purposeful living,” Heyer said.
Looking beyond Newton
Now, 2Life is looking to bring this model beyond Opus Newton.
Heyer, who will succeed Schectman as CEO in late September, said the organization has already begun looking for a location for a second Opus community.
“We definitely plan to replicate it,” she said. “Five years from now, we’d love to be opening a second one. We are actively looking for land for a second Opus community.”
The next community would need to be large enough to make the financial model work, Heyer said.
“Minimally, we need about 175 apartments, and ideally about five acres,” she said. “Part of the financial model is economies of scale. As you spread the programs, services, capital costs, and operating costs across more people, it brings the per-unit cost down. It’s just simple math. Part of the magic is scale.”
Heyer told Fig City News the organization is considering multiple sites in the Greater Boston area.
“We would love to have a site locked down sometime in the next 12 months. It’s feasible in five years to be at the back end of construction.”
Former City Councilor Lipof, who played a key role in the project’s local approval process, said the success of projects like Opus will require communities to become more willing to accept new forms of development.
“Nationwide, we’re losing the middle class,” Lipof told Fig City News. “It starts with acceptance,” he said. “You constantly have people say, ‘I don’t want this in my backyard. Traffic is going to be an issue. I don’t want to listen to construction. I’d like to keep things the same, the character of my neighborhood.’ We have got to accept new developments, new populations into our cities, and we’ve got to make it easier to permit things like this.”
A work in progress
As Opus enters its second year, the experiment is still evolving. But for Friedman, its defining feature is already clear.
“I just feel grateful that I found this place,” she said.
And for Dondis, the future of Opus depends on the people who live there.
“The vision is superb,” she said, “but everyone, residents and staff, have realized that there are plenty of pivots needed along the way.”
“One thing is never in doubt,” she said. “We are creating a loving, deeply loving, and supportive community together.”
