Member Update: Nick Bouquet, Evergreen Partners Housing

Nick Bouquet and his company, Evergreen Partners Housing, have both stepped it up a bit.

Nick is now working out of an office here at the Cooperative Venture Workspace and Evergreen Partners Housing is expanding its efforts into affordable assisted-living facilities for the elderly.

As an early adopter of the Workspace concept, Nick joined the facility when it opened last spring. He took a membership for a cubicle workspace where he operated Evergreen Partners, an “affordable housing preservation” company.

Nick started with Evergreen Partners eight years ago as a development associate and joined the firm as a principal in 2016. Nick was commuting from his Portsmouth home to South Portland, Maine, where Evergreen is based, until he decided his commute time could be better spent as work time.

In his initial search for a space to work, he found what was available a “bit too funky,” in his words, in terms of age and amenities. “I found myself compromising more than I wanted,” he recalled. Until he saw the Workspace.

On Dec. 5, Nick moved from the bullpen to one of the offices that are offered as part of an array of work environments at the Workspace.

“I was always contemplating a more private situation for me,” said Nick. He is regularly on the phone, talking with his partners and others about the projects he has on the table. Or he’s at his stand-up desk, working on dual screens.

In addition to the preservation project, Evergreen is now also focusing on the development of affordable assisted living.

“We looked at our expertise and skillset and decided it was a good way to invest our time,” said Nick. He calls the affordable assisted living model “an emerging market in affordable housing.”

The market for Nick and Evergreen Partners is a growing demographic of men and women, age 75 and older. These individuals have some kind of chronic physical or mental ailment. They need affordable housing and they need affordable health care.

Evergreen’s projects for this demographic, said Nick, “fills a housing need between independent senior living and nursing home-type care. It most markets, this doesn’t even exist yet.”

Nick and Evergreen recently closed the deal on their first such project. Located in Bloomington, Indiana. Evergreen Village includes 115 studio and one-bedroom apartments in three floors of about 100,000 square feet. Other projects are pending in several markets in Indiana and Ohio.

Both Nick and Evergreen are adapting to particular needs at any given point – Evergreen to an underserved market, Nick to the offerings at the Workspace. “You’ve got to match your environment to your work needs,” he said.