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Parkway has 480 residents living in the West Little Rock retirement community.

What started as a dream has turned into a small town.

With a current population of 480, Baptist Health's Parkway Village is bigger than Bauxite (432) and dozens of other towns scattered across Arkansas.

That wasn't the case in 1985 when Parkway Village first opened Chenal Valley in what was then the undeveloped portion of west Little Rock.

"The early board members just realized that there wasn't that much retirement opportunity here, and Baptist wanted to start their own senior living facility," Marsha Cunningham, the long-time director of the facility, said.

The growth at Parkway has been remarkable.

"Our first year we had 52 residents," Cunningham said. "Now we have a waiting list that exceeds the number of people we had here the first year."

To handle that many people, she said the facility has 310 units comprised of 160 cottages and 150 apartments. "We are 100 percent full."

The waiting list is so long that Parkway is working on expanding the facility. Cunningham said that the facility had 14 acres to develop, but that was for the long-term.

Of the 480 people who live at Parkway, 370 are in independent living, while 34 are in assisted living. The remainder, 76, are in the health center, a nursing home facility. Parkway employs 86 people, and the majority of those work in the nursing home.

"The healthcare center is like money — you have it, but you don't want to spend it," Cunningham said. "Our residents know that we have good scores, and they know that they have good care there if they need it, but they don't want it."

To handle the number of people, Parkway has a full-time physician on staff.

"(Dr.) Claudia Tolleson, she's a geriatric specialist and we are very lucky to have her," Cunningham said. "She takes people in the Village as well as people in the community. We have another doctor, Shannon McLaughlin, who works here part-time."

"I really enjoy working with the patients," Tolleson said. "I've been here 12 years now, and some of these patients I saw before I came out here. So I know them, and I have been caring for them for some time."

According to Tolleson, geriatric medicine is different.

"These patients, they have more problems," Tolleson said. "They may have three diseases, they may be taking a variety of medications. They are very complex, and knowing them has made a difference for care. Some may not be able to give their history. And being here has made a difference. Some are very frail, and it is hard for them to get around."

But not everyone at Parkway is in poor health.

"It really varies," she said. "I have some that I may see once a year at their annual exam and then I won't see them again until next year."

Cunningham said the average age of a Parkway resident is 83.7 and "our youngest resident is 60."

But that's the low end.

"Our oldest resident is Ruth Lincoln, who is (Senator) Blanche Lincoln's grandmother-in-law and she'll be 109 and lives in assisted living," Cunningham said. "Mentally and physically she's very good. She just saves her energy for other things. Hers are playing bridge and going to church."

Lincoln might be the oldest resident, but she's got competition.

"We have a resident that lives in a one bedroom apartment, and her name is Gladys Brown and she's 105," Cunningham said. "She's in independent living and extra-healthy. She was still going to the pool at 102 and 103."

Being in a retirement community doesn't mean that all are retired, either.

"We have a few people out here that still work and still run their companies," Cunningham said. "We had this lawyer, and he lived here, and he was still practicing. We have several business owners, and they go to the office every day."

Cunningham said the cost of staying at Parkway really varies from person to person.

"It just depends," she said. "It varies depending on the accommodations — some are in studio or one bedroom or two bedroom. We have deluxe, double occupancy and single occupancy.

The healthcare center is similar with private, semi-private, large private, small private, so lots of choices.

Parkway does not participate in the Medicare program, and all residents are private pay. To stay in the healthcare center, the cost could run from $4,200 to $5,700 a month, which are big numbers, but the cost also covers round-the-clock nursing care and a doctor that makes house calls, along with meals and a residence.

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