Tyler A Retirement Haven: Baby Boomers Flock To East Texas By BRIAN PEARSON, Business Editor   |   Oct 19, 2009

Forecasts of a lurking recession convinced Jim Alberts two years ago to grab his pension and run from the Florida company he oversaw as chief executive officer.

Alberts and his wife, Sue, shopped for a place to retire and whittled their choices to two states: Texas and Tennessee.

Using a book called, "Cities Ranked & Rated," the couple narrowed their search to the city level and analyzed the pros and cons category by category.

While Tyler didn't sit atop the book's overall rankings, the city stood out when seen for its hospitals, cost of living, climate and other assets.

"When we both got an opportunity to get a nice pension, we decided it was time to move," said Jim Alberts, who had lived in Texas before. "We considered other places such as Knoxville. When we weighed everything carefully, Texas was the best appeal. I looked at all the places in Texas that were possible and reasonable, and Tyler made the most sense."

Economic-development shakers here aren't looking to turn Tyler and Smith County into the full-blown retirement communities such as the ones in Arizona, Florida and the Texas Hill Country. But they are promoting the community as a desirable place to retire and see seniors as a rapidly growing economic force.

Smith County has the state's second highest percentage of residents age 65 and older, according to a U.S. Census report released last month.

At almost 30,500 strong, those residents represent an estimated 14.7 percent of the county's population of 201,277, the report states. Only Henderson County, with 18.8 percent of its population 65 or older, ranked higher.

Williamson County, home to the sprawling Sun City Georgetown retirement community, had only 8.7 percent of its population made up of seniors.

By comparison, seniors make up 10.2 percent of the state population and 12.8 percent of the nation's population.

The seniors' piece of the Smith County population pie is growing as well. It was 13.4 percent in 2005.

And that pales in comparison to what is expected in the decades to come for the nation.

In a study released earlier this year, the U.S. Census Bureau placed the nation's senior population at 37.9 million as of July 1, 2007, accounting for 13 percent of the total population. That age group increase by 635,000 people alone from 2006 to 2007.

The bureau projects that demographic group to increase to 88.5 million by 2050, representing 20 percent of the total population.

Meanwhile, U.S. News & World Report magazine in 2008 put Tyler on its list of top 10 places to retire. Climate, cost of living, recreation, cultural and health-care facilities factored into the ranking. The magazine noted that 23,111, or about 25 percent, of the city's population of 94,146 were age 55 and older.

SENIOR ECONOMICS

Tom Mullins, Tyler Economic Development Council president and CEO, said the Tyler area will reap the benefits of the Baby Boomer retirement bubble as seniors, as they have for decades, migrate south for retirement.

"We always said we want Tyler to be retirement-friendly but not a retirement town like you'd see in a Florida or Arizona area," Mullins said. "We think it's a growing and an important part of the national economy, and we want to participate in the economic impact."

In advance, the East Texas Council of Governments in 2001 designated Tyler as a "certified retirement city."

The community's attention to seniors will be underscored at the eighth-annual Senior Health and Living Expo, which will be held 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Thursday at Harvey Convention Center.

Tyler does have one retiree-specific project in the works. The Meadow Lake gated retirement community for adults 55 and older is expected to break ground on its first house in November, Kaye Ferrier, marketing director said.

The $64 million project, after almost a year in limbo, will create up to 300 construction jobs and 84 permanent jobs.

The 92-acre development is off County Road 165 near the intersection of Loop 49 and Old Jacksonville Highway. About 250 people will be able to live there.

Construction is set to start next month on 57 single-family homes, with the first occupants arriving in May of next year, Ms. Ferrier said. There also will be 80 garden apartment homes, 54 assisted-living apartments and a 30-bed facility for those who need more specialized care, such as Alzheimer's patients.

Ms. Ferrier said the entire project is expected to be finished by the end of next year.

Almost 80 percent of the apartments and more than half of the homes already have been sold, she said.

The community offers single-family homes ranging in size from 1,600 to 2,500 square feet and in range in price from $258,400 to $468,600.

WOOING RETIREES

Waco-based economist Ray Perryman, a Lindale native, said Dallas seems to be fertile ground for recruiting retirees to Tyler.

"Tyler is convenient to Dallas, has a relatively low cost of living and housing, is a pretty place with a lot of lakes and amenities and is accessible through major road arteries," Perryman said in an e-mail. "All of those things attract retirees. The area has the needed attributes. The trend might be accelerated by an aggressive marketing campaign to make more people aware."

Mullins said the Midwest also seems to be prime recruiting grounds, although retirees, as Alberts illustrated, are coming from both coasts, as well.

"We think a lot of them will move to Sun Belt states," he said of retirees in the northern states. "I know from growing up in Minnesota and being a Baby Boomer that a lot of the people I grew up with are already starting to make the move somewhere there's a milder climate."

Seniors for the most part seem to move straight south, such as those from Boston and Philadelphia retiring to the Carolinas, he noted.

"We think Texas is going to get a big share from the upper Midwest," Mullins said. "But we're also seeing people move in from the West Coast and East Coast alike.

"It's really quite an interesting pattern. Texas provides a lot of options for retirees."

To market Tyler as a retirement destination, the Tyler Chamber of Commerce sends out promotional packets and fills its Web site with senior-tantalizing information, Mullins said. Advertisements are placed in publications such as Senior News, Where to Retire, Retire Texas and Travel 50 and Beyond.

"People respond to those ads," he said, adding that the ads tout cost of living, climate, culture, medical care and Texas not having a state income tax.

COMMUNITY CHECKLIST

Seniors research their retirement prospect much in the way that companies do when considering a place to relocate, Mullins said. They narrow their choices by region and then state before getting to the city level, carefully examining community amenities, he said.

"They handle this like a site-selection committee would," he added.

This is very much how Jim and Sue Alberts handled their search, and they might have been living in Knoxville today if they had not poured over Tyler's finer points.

They moved to Tyler in November 2008 and spent six weeks living with their two dogs in a hotel until their home in The Ridge subdivision on the city's southeast side was completed.

Jim Alberts, 68, said Tyler turned out to be everything the research said it was.

"I think geographically it's beautiful here," Alberts said. "You have lots of trees and greenery.

The size is perfect relative to Dallas and Houston, which have all that horrible traffic. After I did some due diligence, I like the people here, everything about the culture. The people are high-quality individuals.

"For the size of the city, the arts and culture are pretty good, too."