The future of Sunrise Senior Assisted Living LLC’s proposed 99-unit senior assisted living and memory care center will be decided by the Planning Board on February 4, 2026. The proposed facility would be on a 3.4-acre property at the intersection of Norwood Street and Edge Hill Road. The Planning Board will take a motion to approve or reject the development, ultimately deciding the project’s fate.
Sunrise LLC claims that its facility will satisfy Sharon’s growing senior population while strengthening the town’s tax base, with an estimated annual property tax revenue exceeding $400,000. The proposed building will be forty feet tall, meet Sharon’s newly adopted Specialized Stretch Energy Code – a building standard that requires new construction to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 –, and will be surrounded by walkways and outdoor seating areas complemented by a variety of trees, shrubs, and plant life. Additionally, the applicant has reached an agreement with the town of Norwood and the Massachusetts legislature to connect to Norwood’s sewer to dispose of wastewater, eliminating the constraints of a septic tank. Alongside considering these potential benefits, residents of Sharon and the Planning Board raised several key concerns, specifically regarding the environmental damage of increased stormwater runoff and reduced natural ground coverage, the increased traffic in the Norwood Street-Edge Hill Road Intersection, and the facility’s potential strain on fire and EMS services.
Throughout the second half of 2025, the Select Board negotiated a developer’s agreement with Sunrise Sharon and approved it during a Dec. 2 meeting. The deal includes a one-time $250,000 mitigation payment to the town’s ambulatory reserve funds, quarterly programming for Sharon seniors at the new facility, a 5-year commitment of $10,000 annually to the Council on Aging, and an incentive payment of $150,000 if the applicant receives approval of the permit within six months.
Select Board member Sam Liao is optimistic about the project, stating at the Nov.18 meeting that “this facility will encourage people to stay in the town and will allow people to move here as they age.”
Meanwhile, the Planning Board and the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) have been conducting joint public hearings with the applicant since November, 2025 to approve or deny the project. The Planning Board can grant Sunrise a special permit for land use or terminate the project altogether.
If the project passes the Planning Board stage, the ZBA will have 30 days to circulate the request to all relevant town bodies (Planning Board, Board of Health, Conservation Commission, and the police and fire departments) to aid in deliberations granting Sunrise variances in height, lot coverage, required parking spaces, and the percentage of natural coverage.
Sharon residents’ reaction to the proposed senior assisted living center is mixed. Some are worried about the risk of limited tax revenue and the burden it could pose on the town’s systems. Others are upset about the change in neighborhood composition resulting from the facility’s size, height, and the potential for a significant increase in traffic. In an email to the ZBA, one resident wrote, “daily vehicular movements of this magnitude fundamentally alter the quiet, residential character of the neighborhood.”
Another resident challenged Sunrise’s claim that aging Sharonites will disproportionately move into the facility, arguing instead that the rooms would go to the highest bidder, not the closest, and would thus fail to be fully integrated in the Sharon community.
Still, some Sharonnites are excited about the new facility, with one longtime resident writing in an email to the Planning Board, “I was happy to learn that this property seems to be viewed as uniquely suited for the project. … I would put our names on the wait list for this Sunrise facility.”
Much of the Nov. 12 joint meeting was spent discussing the issue of land preservation and Sunrise’s request to decrease the percentage of property allocated for natural coverage from 50% down to 40%. Disagreements centered on the interpretation of natural coverage, which is defined as “land having a well-established cover of thatch, mulch, or leaves, characterized by the prevalence of native plants.” The applicant argues that its site plan meets the definition of natural coverage because it includes the planting of native and adaptive species such as eastern redbud and American boxwood, and a ground cover of pinebark mulch, which is native to Massachusetts.
The Planning Board also raised concerns about the potential increase in traffic and untreated stormwater, though Sunrise argues that its facility would create a minimal burden on traffic and could properly treat stormwater. The Planning Board noted that although an assisted living facility attracts minimal traffic compared to retail centers, truck activity should be further researched and minimized to hours of low traffic volume. Although Sunrise drafted a 107-page proposal on stormwater management, the specific stormwater treatment system would be determined by the Conservation Commission, the Engineering Department, and the Department of Public Works, should the project advance to the ZBA.
Concerns about the developer’s agreement arose at the joint meeting on December 10. When discussing the applicant’s $10,000 five-year commitment to the Council on Aging, Planning Board chair Robert Maidman said, “It seems to me that your intent is to get started and not to continue.” In response, Clyde McGraw, vice president of real estate for Sunrise Living, reiterated that the five-year agreement was a “test run” based on the request of the town administrator, and that Sunrise is open to an ongoing annual $10,000 donation after the commitment expires.
Despite both the town assessor and Sunrise’s financial consultant agreeing on the property’s assessed value of $20 – $27 million and the estimate of $433,000 in property tax, Planning Board member Oanh Thi Nguyen said that these numbers were overly optimistic and feared that Sunrise Sharon’s tax revenues would fall similar to CareOne, another senior living facility in Sharon. Mike Khoury, attorney for Sunrise LLC, insists that the board not treat CareOne as a precedent, describing it as a “lower-tier operation,” and McGraw added that Sunrise’s properties tend to appreciate rather than depreciate. Moreover, the applicants argued that the board should compare Sunrise Sharon to Sunrise’s Newton branch, which has proven to be profitable. In response, Maidman stated that there is nothing comparable between the Newton and Sharon facilities on the grounds that the ambulance commute from Sunrise Newton to the nearest hospital is considerably less than what it would be from the Sharon location.
Should the project pass the Planning Board vote this Wednesday, it will then be forwarded to the ZBA, after which a final vote will take place at the May town meeting.
