EYA’s newest Rockville community, Tower Oaks, will feature a unique destination at its center: the CORE. This amenity-rich space will act as a central gathering spot for residents. With a variety of features from a yoga studio to a neighborhood cafe, there will be many opportunities for residents to engage in recreational and community events. This is where a distinct feature of the CORE will come into play: a full-time lifestyle coordinator.
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The lifestyle coordinator’s role will be to support the community in every way, from organizing and booking special events to working closely with residents to bring the neighbors together. To get a better feel for how the lifestyle coordinator will play a pivotal role at the CORE, we spoke with Nancy Cuccaro and Tracy Briglia from NFC Amenity Management, the lifestyle management company EYA has teamed up with to create the lifestyle coordinator role at Tower Oaks.
Tracy: NFC Amenity Management (NFC) is the nation's largest provider of full service amenity management services in the country. Serving over 250 communities nationwide, we provide that expertise when it comes to design, development, and execution of lifestyle services.
Nancy: As a team management company, we provide a variety of lifestyle programming options from spa management to fitness center management to concierge and front desk services. In the case of Tower Oaks, we’re adding a lifestyle piece to the role that will bring together the community in a really unique way.
The lifestyle coordinator will be responsible for all of the social event planning, fitness programming, specialty groups, and overall lifestyle enrichment activities. This could mean bringing in someone to teach residents with cooking demonstrations, setting up a financial planning seminar, or even coordinating excursions outside of the CORE for sporting events, theater performances, or local festivals. The lifestyle coordinator will be the one organizing all of these different types of activities for the residents and providing them with a full calendar of opportunities to take advantage of within their community, as well as in the surrounding area.
Nancy: A lifestyle coordinator has more of a social aspect and focus to it. They’re going to be bringing the community together for all these different events and activities. Whereas a concierge director would be focused on more traditional front desk services such as handling packages, making reservations, and meeting more instant needs. The lifestyle coordinator will be in place for bigger picture social opportunities. Since Tower Oaks will be a new neighborhood, the buyers will all be moving into a new home, wanting to get to know both their neighbors as well as their new neighborhood. This will be a great way for them to do that, as well as to experience the different types of events and outings in the area.
Tracy: Absolutely. What’s unique to the lifestyle coordinator for this community is that they’re responsible for getting to know the residents, getting to know their families, their guests, and their friends.
In addition to modeling programming after the residents, they’ll be creating a monthly calendar of events that can be promoted through community newsletter and email. They can put these events on a community Facebook page or Instagram account – there’s really a variety of different avenues for residents to engage and be aware of all that’s happening in the community.
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Nancy: The great thing about the CORE is that there will be many different aspects of it. You’re going to have fitness, so there’s going to be a lot of group exercise programs. There’s going to be outdoor courts and green spaces that will offer programs for pickle ball or half-court basketball or something along those lines. For dog owners, there could be walking groups or yappy hours, and during the summer there could be outdoor movies on the lawn. From karaoke nights to trivia nights to chili cook offs – it can be something very simple or it can be a big extravaganza.
We also typically set up activities around the holidays. It could be a July 4th barbecue, a neighborhood Friends-giving or simply organizing volunteer events to spread joy around holidays – there’s just hundreds of ideas and opportunities to do something.
Tracy: Another exciting aspect of the lifestyle coordinator role will be helping to shape the programming for residents. For example, there could be a program category called ‘Community' that would include events for local charities, the environment, animal shelters, or fund-raising. Another category could be ‘Fit’ which would include group exercise classes, wellness assessments, or mind/body classes. ‘Play’ would involve kids activities such as a craft day or even teen events. We’ll provide tailored programming across different categories that will be developed based on input from the Tower Oaks residents.
Nancy: What we like to do, especially with new communities such as Tower Oaks, is start off by sending our new residents a survey to gauge interest in everything from fitness to social programming. Typically, it will be about a two-page survey that they will complete with all of their interests. Then we take all of that data and build our programming around it, creating the categories Tracy mentioned as well as creating a calendar of events.
Tracy: Exactly. Based on those survey results, the lifestyle coordinator will create very comprehensive programming that’s unique to this community - what they would like to see, and what their needs, wants, and wishes are.
Nancy: Yes, definitely. The lifestyle coordinator will facilitate those types of resident-run clubs. So, the lifestyle coordinator may facilitate the first meeting and then at that point you would appoint a committee chair for the group. Then, once they get up and running, the residents would take over the club - whether it be a book club or a biking club or a jogging club. There's hundreds of different options to go and do something like that.
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Nancy: They will be working full-time (that is, 40 hours per week) from their dedicated space within the CORE, available to the residents both in-person and by email or phone – the works.
Nancy: I think when you say lifestyle coordinator or lifestyle director, a lot of people don’t understand what that role is until they are in it. It’s basically this person who is going to be the liaison between the CORE and all of the residents. They’re going to facilitate the programming and all of these fun events and they’re going to help create a stronger sense of community belonging.
For more information on the CORE and the amenities that will be available, click here. Interested in learning more about the Tower Oaks community? Click here to get to know the neighborhood, the townhomes, and more.