Lark Springs

Lark Springs is one of the few Colorado Springs communities built for a single purpose: all 76 beds on North Academy Boulevard exist for residents living with dementia, with no assisted living or independent living wing attached. Families who've walked through several communities before landing here often point to that narrow focus as the deciding factor over bigger, mixed-care buildings. Nearly everything about the building reflects that focus.

Rooms, private and semi-private, are set up for families to bring in furniture and personal touches so they feel less like a rental and more like home. Showers were designed to avoid the cramped, clinical stalls common elsewhere, and residents can move between indoor common areas and outdoor spaces on their own, without staff having to escort them down a single hallway. Once a month, staff run a support group where families work through what dementia care looks like as it progresses.

Families weighing a permanent move, or caregivers who simply need a break, can also book a short respite stay first. A courtyard has become something of a neighborhood fixture, home to two resident bunnies that residents visit regularly. Families mention how much residents eat at mealtimes, taking it as a sign the food is landing well. Staff get described as patient and consistently present, greeting residents by name rather than treating them as a rotating group, and families say they hear from staff often enough to know how a loved one is settling in rather than having to ask.

A community organized entirely around dementia care makes the most sense for a family that has already settled on memory care as the need, rather than one still comparing it against assisted living or independent living. Lark Springs doesn't bill Medicaid, and it hasn't confirmed whether pets are allowed, so private-pay costs and any pet questions are worth working out early. For households that have already ruled out other levels of care, that narrower focus tends to make the decision more straightforward, not less.

The North Academy Boulevard address puts Lark Springs within a short drive of both Penrose Hospital and UCHealth Memorial Hospital, and the Academy Boulevard corridor's shops and restaurants are close enough for visiting family to run errands without going far out of their way. Built from the ground up around one kind of care, Lark Springs gives Colorado Springs families furnished private rooms, a courtyard residents can reach on their own, and a building designed specifically around dementia rather than adapted for it.