The groundbreaking for Sophia Snow Place, a community for seniors in Boston’s Roslindale neighborhood that will feature 66 independent living units and 36 private rest-home rooms, is scheduled to take place this morning.

For more than 30 years, Thelma Moore has owned a spacious two-family home in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood that she’s shared with her sister.

The two sisters decided to sell the home about two years ago because they didn’t need all the space – or the maintenance requirements – that came with the 17-room house. After having trouble finding an appropriate condominium community in Boston that was within their price range to move into, Moore and her sister, Sara Johnson, were just about ready to purchase new homes in a condo complex in North Weymouth called Weymouthport.

“I wasn’t too happy about that,” Moore said of the prospect of leaving Boston. “But I felt [the new condo] would meet my needs.”

Then, one day while they were participating in a golf tournament in Boston’s Franklin Park, the sisters came across a flier for a new retirement community being developed in Roslindale called Sophia Snow Place. After a visit to the site, Moore and Johnson decided to put deposits on two units.

Moore says there were several features of Sophia Snow Place that she found appealing. First of all, the community is in Boston just a stone’s throw away from the neighborhood Moore has lived in for more than three decades. Second, even though Moore would be moving into units designed for independent older adults, she would also have access to services – such as transportation or meals – if she needed them.

And most importantly, units at Sophia Snow Place, geared for seniors with moderate incomes, were priced right. “All things considered, I think we made a wise choice,” Moore said last week.

Located in Roslindale, on the borders of Boston’s West Roxbury and Jamaica Plain neighborhoods, Sophia Snow Place will feature 66 independent living units and 36 private rest-home rooms. A groundbreaking for the project, which is being developed by Rogerson Communities – a nonprofit agency based in Roslindale that manages and develops facilities for the elderly – is scheduled to take place today. The community is being developed on the site that is currently home to the Sophia Snow House, a residential care retirement home.

Rogerson Communities is marketing Sophia Snow Place as an attractive option for aging homeowners with moderate incomes who want to sell their homes and don’t have the resources to live in the more luxurious senior housing communities cropping up in Greater Boston, but yet don’t qualify to move into the city’s low-income elderly housing complexes. Boston residents whose incomes are not more than 10 percent above the area median income will be given priority at Sophia Snow Place.

“There are very few products around for independent elders who want to have a place to retire to and age in place that is in the city, near the neighborhoods they’ve lived in Â… near their families and that is affordable,” said James F. Seagle Jr., president of Rogerson Communities.

Rogerson Communities, a 143-year-old nonprofit agency that was originally started as a rest home for older men, has done similar projects in the past. About five years ago, the agency helped transform a Wrentham rest home it was managing into a retirement community known as Pond Home which is spread over 20 acres and offers residents an a la carte menu of services.

A La Carte

Sophia Snow Place is a much smaller project, but like Pond Home it will offer a la carte services like housekeeping, transportation and personal care assistance to residents of the independent living units. That’s a substantial difference, according to Rogerson, from typical assisted living facilities where residents are required to pay for meals and other services even if they don’t want or need them.

Residents of Sophia Snow Place must pay an entry fee of between $199,500 to $209,500 – 95 percent of which is refundable if a resident has to move out or dies – as well as a $600 monthly fee which covers onsite management, heat and hot water, building and liability insurance and all the interior and exterior building and grounds maintenance.

The units are about 800 square feet and feature one bedroom, full kitchens, a bathroom, a living room, and den or dining room.

Parking, electrical and air conditioning costs, telephone services and insurance on personal property must be paid by residents. Services like housekeeping, laundry, meals, transportation and personal care assistance are available for an extra fee.

Such costs are a stark contrast to price points offered at Boylston Place at Chestnut Hill, a 48-unit upscale assisted living facility on Route 9 in Brookline located only three miles away from Sophia Snow Place. Prices for the 400- to 500-square-foot studio units at Boylston Place – which offers residents a continuum of care depending on their needs – rent anywhere from $4,600 to about $8,000 per month. Monthly rents for larger one-bedroom units can be as high as $10,000, while two-bedroom units can cost up to $13,000 a month.

“In general, affordable housing is a big issue for Boston, and seniors are certainly a part of that picture and perhaps even more so because a lot of seniors are on fixed incomes, which limits their housing options,” said Eliza Greenberg, who was recently named director of the city’s Commission on Elderly Affairs.

According to a study done last April, 40 percent of Boston residents aged 65 and older owned homes, while 49 percent resided in rental housing, said Greenberg. As the former director of the city’s Emergency Shelter Commission, Greenberg said she frequently received phone calls from seniors who owned large homes and were facing financial strains but were not sure what their next housing move was going to be.

As the population ages, there will be more working seniors, resulting in an elderly population that will have a wide range of incomes, predicted Greenberg. “I would say that the mayor is interested in developing housing for all of them,” she said. “Our goal would be to make sure that no one is in a precarious living situation.”

“Mayor [Thomas] Menino and the [Boston Redevelopment Authority] have been committed to creating housing opportunities for our city’s elderly,” said BRA Director Mark Maloney in a prepared statement e-mailed to Banker & Tradesman. “Given Boston’s tight housing market we need to pay special attention to our most vulnerable populations by providing them with safe, secure and affordable places to call home. The Sophia Snow project in Roslindale is just our most recent success story.”