First Ever ‘Dementia Village’ to Be Built in the U.S.

Monday, February 16, 2026

As reported by People

The first-ever “Dementia Village” in the United States is underway in Wisconsin.

The $40 million community will be built near Madison, on the Fitchburg campus of Agrace, a community-based nonprofit health care agency in the state, the company announced on its website, and in a report by WMTV 15 News.

It’s modeled after similar, successful communities in Netherlands, and is expected to house up to 65 people with similar interests and dementia diagnoses. Plans include the construction of eight homes, each designed to house eight residents, but daily visitors will also be allowed.

The community will also include a restaurant, spa, and a grocery store — and is designed to resemble a neighborhood, not a nursing home. There will also be housing for staff and caretakers.

“We want to create an environment where we restore as much autonomy and personal spontaneity as possible for those living with dementia,” Agrace President and CEO Lynne Sexten said.

“There’s going to be such a gap, such a need for additional memory care beds in our community that it was a slam dunk. It made sense to move forward with this,” Sexten said. “Families aren’t happy, the people living in these memory care units aren’t always happy, and so really what we wanted to do was try to find a better solution. And this solution has been created in lots of other countries, just not the U.S.”

Logan Reigstad, an alderperson on the Fitchburg Common Council which approved the community last January, said the project is personal for him. “My great grandma lived with me while she was suffering from dementia, and watching someone go through that is absolutely heart wrenching,” he said. “I don’t often have words to describe it. But then there would be these glimmers, these little moments when she would come back. And it would be a memory of a song, or it would be something that would trigger that.”

He continued: “As I look at the dementia village concept where it’s really trying to evoke that, I just think of how many more moments it could provide for families like mine and all of those suffering from dementia.”

Pricing isn’t available yet, but Agrace has said it’s expected to be comparable to other nursing care facilities, with medical expenses being billed to insurance.

The village will begin construction this spring, and is projected to open next year.