The Reserve at Lone Tree, Lone Tree, Colorado: 2026 EFA Design Showcase Honorable Mention
Situated within the RidgeGate master-planned community, The Reserve at Lone Tree in Lone Tree, Colo., opened in August 2025. The community offers a continuum of care with 125 independent living units, 60 assisted living units, and 24 memory support units.
Submitted to the Design Showcase by OZ Architecture (Denver), the project required close collaboration with city planners to ensure the senior living community complemented the development’s multifamily housing, commercial spaces, and parks. The resulting design features a 9-story independent living tower connected via a 2-story amenity hub to a 5-story assisted living and memory support building, totaling 322,760 gross square feet.
The project team designed The Reserve to feel open and accessible, with pathways that connect to the surrounding development and encourage pedestrian movement through the site. A key challenge was ensuring the high-density structure seemed approachable despite its size and vertical build. The solution: stepped massing. Recessed terraces, cantilevered sections, and layered cornices visually break down the building’s scale.
The inclusion of community outdoor spaces and activities stood out to jurors as a positive feature to support community integration. For example, ground-floor amenities are positioned at the most visible corners to create transparency between residents and the streetscape. A dual-purpose service plaza transforms a typical logistical necessity into a flexible social space to host food trucks, markets, and community events. Furthermore, outdoor spaces such as pickleball courts, dog parks, and walking trails connect directly to the regional trail system, encouraging intergenerational engagement.
Find more coverage of the 2026 EFA Design Showcase here.
April Shernisky is executive editor of Environments for Aging magazine and can be reached at [email protected].
