“It’s the perfect way to get residents to know each other,” says Bill Lavery, developer of Cooking With the Best Chefs. “It also attracts new people who are shopping around.”
Cooking With the Best Chefs hosts restaurant tours, wine festivals, ethnic cuisine shopping expeditions, and an annual mushroom hunt, but Lavery says his cooking classes are an ideal amenity for residential properties. “We can cater to 10 people or we can cater to 50. It’s all about what works for the developers and the residents,” Lavery says. Residents at the Westbrook Condominiums, a nearly 300-unit development in Hillside, Ill., agree that the cooking classes supply a refreshing twist to the everyday activities at Westbrook.
Still, in some cases, getting a cooking class together requires innovative partnerships. Take the 5000 France Edina Condos in Edina, Minn. The property hired a personal chef to offer a cooking class at a Sur La Table retail store situated in its ground floor to entice new and exciting residents.
KEEP ‘EM FULL Lea Bruget, community administrator at the Irvine Co.’s Torrey Villas Apartment Homes in San Diego and a client of Big City Chefs, believes that the cooking and wine classes offer benefits beyond the initial sale. They also play a key role in resident retention. “We just won an award for our retention rates, and I know that Big City Chefs had something to do with that,” Bruget says. “Even today, most communities aren’t offering these features, and it’s clearly something residents are looking for.”
From securing prospective residents to retaining current ones, the cooking class fad doesn’t seem to be waning anytime soon. “When people have connections with their neighbors, it makes everybody have a bit of an anchor in their lives and gives a small-town feel to places no matter their size.” Stieber says.
“And it doesn’t hurt that there’s fantastic food.”
Hillary Brylka is a freelance writer in Chicago.
No More Mess Halls Military housing gets a gourmet boost.
Mindy Smith doesn’t live in your average residential community. For the past three years, Smith and her family have lived in Lincoln Military Housing outside San Diego. “Because it’s military housing, there’s a large turnover rate,” Smith says. “Every summer, families move out and others move in.”
For communities like Smith’s, the cooking classes offered by Big City Chefs are an ideal amenity. With a Marine Corps drill instructor husband and four children to raise, Smith is constantly looking for family-oriented activities. “The classes give us something to do as a family,” Smith says. “The chefs always make sure the kids get involved and participate, and of course, the kids love it.”
Drew Schunk, regional vice president for Dallas-based Lincoln Military Management, emphasizes the importance of such amenities in the military communities. “Our families have unique stresses and needs,” Schunk says. “They rely on a sense of community, and we need to build that for them.”
Smith couldn’t be happier with the activities that Lincoln provides. “They have created a way for our community to constantly regain a sense of closeness,” Smith says. “We all have to eat, and we all have to cook. Why not do it together?”