by As director of online sales for construction company CC Homes, Lorraine Sánchez encourages potential buyers to visit the company’s homes in Ave María, a town in southwest Florida.
Since last year it has a new marketing tool: Ave María is “certified” as a blue zonea place aimed at helping people live a healthy and active life.
“It’s a great selling point,” Ms. Sanchez said.
The term “blue zone” was coined two decades ago when Dan Buettner, a National Geographic explorer, was researching places around the world where people routinely lived to be 100 years old or older. He deduced that the residents of these mostly small and remote places lived such long, healthy lives because they stayed active, ate plant-based foods, and formed lasting social bonds, among other practices.
The concept has become the latest wellness buzzword: Blue Zones, the company that grew out of Mr. Buettner’s research, has put its trademark on books, canned beans, bottled tea, frozen burrito bowls and even a series on netflix.
Now the real estate industry has entered the game. Blue Zones runs initiatives that certify towns and cities that meet healthy lifestyle criteria and help others remake themselves to promote longevity. The initiatives, often funded by health care systems and insurance companies with vested interests in a healthy and healthy population, promote solutions such as smoking bans, bike paths, and group activities that foster a sense of belonging.
Eighty locations in the United States (from Bakersfield, California, to Corriry, dad. — have adopted these initiatives, called Blue Zone Projects. Some developers are inspired by Blue Zones even if they are not seeking official certification.
But in some cases, it appears to be more of a marketing ploy than anything else, joining an avalanche of real estate certification programs and having little to do with the modest lifestyle that Blue Zones are intended to reflect.
A luxury hotel and condo project in Miami is using the Blue Zones moniker for an on-site medical center that will offer plastic surgery. And there has been opposition in some quarters, including a part of Phoenix with a large minority population. Some non-profit groups there wrote a letter criticizing an effort to organize a Blue Zones initiative, saying it would compete with plans already in progress, draining resources and funding.
“This is like basic lifestyle medicine,” said Janelle Applequist, an associate professor at the University of South Florida’s Zimmerman School of Advertising and Mass Communications. “This is something we have always known. “They’re just repackaging it.”
Buettner defended his company’s approach, saying it was based on extensive research and that instead of trying to convince people to change their behavior, as other wellness programs do, it focuses on changing the environment to facilitate healthy choices.
“At first glance, it might look like what’s been done before,” he said. “But every component of what we do is backed by evidence.”
The Blue Zones phenomenon began when Buettner learned that the Japanese island of Okinawa produced the oldest people in the world, and in 1999 he set out to find out why.
Within a decade, he and other researchers had identified four more blue zones: small communities in Italy, Costa Rica and Greece, as well as Loma Linda, California, which had a high proportion of Seventh-day Adventists, many of them vegetarians. (The “blue” in the blue areas comes from ink marks made on maps that mark the places where centenarians gathered.)
Mr. Buettner distilled what blue zone residents had in common and set out to spread the gospel in books, articles and talks. He founded Blue Zones to manage all these activities and is now president.
“I never set out to be a longevity guru,” Buettner says at the beginning of his Netflix series.
Some questioned his claims and data. And since their initial investigations, some of the original blue zones have lost their longevity advantage as processed foods supplanted meals made from homegrown ingredients and the sedentary ways of modern life took hold.
But Buettner recently designated a sixth blue zone: Singapore. The Southeast Asian island differed from the previous five, which had grown organically, because its government policies pushed people to make healthier choices.
Mr. Buettner had tested the idea of modifying people’s environment to encourage healthy living with a project in a small Minnesota town, Albert Lea, in 2009. Changes Boosted by the project, which included adding sidewalks so people could walk to stores, it resulted in increases in life expectancy and a more vibrant downtown, Blue Zones advocates say. Property values also increased.
Today Adventist Health, a religious healthcare system, owns Blue Zones. AND share, a digital health company, has been running many of the Blue Zone projects, paying licenses and royalties to use the name and principles. Localities, in turn, pay between $3 and $40 million for the initiatives.
He NCH Health System initiated a Blue Zone Project in southwest Florida in 2015, starting in Naples, a city on the Gulf of Mexico. The project now covers 2,000 square miles and encompasses smaller inland towns like Ave Maria.
Ave María was founded in 2005 by Tom Monaghan, founder of Domino’s Pizza and supporter of Roman Catholic causes. He partnered with Barron Collier Companies, a developer that long owned the land on which Ave Maria sits.
Being Catholic is not a requirement for residency, but the city’s name and its large church certainly attract Catholic home buyers.
Blue Zones certification for the community is “like getting the Good Housekeeping seal of approval,” said Victor Acquista, a retired primary care physician and Ave Maria resident. He volunteers on a Blue Zones committee that has organized activities such as a 30-day walking challenge and a 30-day gratitude challenge.
Perhaps less obvious is what Blue Zones principles (some drawn from the daily lives of herders and people who grew their own food) have to do with a $600 million, 50-story luxury tower that Royal Palm Companies is building in Miami and it will have glass elevators and a rooftop terrace with infinity pool.
The development, called Legacy Hotel & Residences and expected to open in 2026, will also have a Blue Zones Centersaid Dan Kodsi, CEO of Royal Palm, describing it as “like a shopping mall with the best longevity and wellness groups in the world.” A joint venture was formed with Adventist Health to operate the center..
Kodsi said his project would cater to the rise in medical tourism. “We’re envisioning you coming and learning about the Blue Zone lifestyle” before going to a doctor for treatment or surgery, he said.
It’s a far cry from the original blue zone concept, but Mr. Kodsi may have hit on a winning formula for his project: He said that all 310 condominiums in the building had been sold and that many professionals had expressed interest in being part of the medical center that royal palm bought a nearby property to make room for everyone.
Despite the growing popularity of blue zones, some organizers are encountering resistance.
Equality Health Foundation, a nonprofit spinoff of the Equality Health primary care platform, has been working to organize a Blue Zones Project in south Phoenix, an area with a majority black and Hispanic population that has lower incomes. and lower life expectancy than nearby predominantly white areas. .
Tomás León, president of the foundation, said that he seeks to raise $10.5 million for the initiative.
But some local groups have expressed concern that Blue Zones will duplicate efforts they already have in place and that the fundraising campaign will divert money that could otherwise go to their projects.
For example, the Cihuapactli Collective, an advocacy group for indigenous families, has plans for a The wellness center that would require raising about $25 million, said Enjolie Lafaurie, co-chief executive officer of operations and development. “It’s like robbing Peter to pay Paul,” she added.
The groups also noted in a letter that similar projects lacked roots in the community and that efforts to organize a Blue Zones initiative had “a white savior complex.”
León said he was sensitive to the concerns of the groups that signed the protest letter and was increasing his fundraising to address them.
Buettner said Blue Zone Projects could be difficult to execute, as they would require a coordinated effort by people in all corners of a community.
“There’s a lot of discipline, headaches and course correction to make things work,” he added.
