ATLANTA, GA — Healthcare Trust of America Inc. has increased its total portfolio to over 500,000 square feet with new acquisitions in Atlanta and Englewood, Co.

In Atlanta, HTA, based in Scottsdale, AZ, paid $19.55 million or $243 per square foot for a 94%-leased, 80,562-square-foot, 338-bed medical office portfolio on the Camp Creek Medical Center campus, about six miles west of South Fulton Medical Center in East Point, Georgia.

In Englewood, CO, HTA bought the 66,339-square-foot, three-story, Class A Hampden Place Medical Center for $18.6 million or $271 per square foot.

Of the Atlanta acquisition, Mark D. Engstrom, Executive Vice President of Acquisitions for HTA, says, “This is an underserved medical submarket and the Camp Creek Medical Center is designed to expand as demand grows.”

He adds, “We are optimistic about the Atlanta medical office marketplace and view this acquisition as a positive step forward in our growth strategy for this specific market.”

With this acquisition, Healthcare Trust of America has acquired over 500,000 square feet of medical office space in Georgia, Engstrom says.

The acquired medical office buildings were developed by Atlanta-based Ackerman & Co. in affiliation with South Fulton Medical Center. South Fulton Medical was recently rated ‘Best Critical Care in Region’ by Healthgrades, a healthcare ratings organization.

The acquired portfolio serves the rapidly-growing area of south metro Atlanta.

In Englewood, the purchased property is just south of Central Denver.

John Smelter, a first vice president and senior director of Marcus & Millichap’s Healthcare Real Estate Group in San Diego, represented buyer and seller in the transaction.

Adam Christofferson, a first vice president and broker of record for Colorado, also provided representation.

“The property was thoughtfully planned under the direction of Development Solutions Group by the physician owners, in conjunction with the participating hospital system, to facilitate the ongoing profitability and sustainability of the tenant businesses,” says Smelter.

Built in 2004 on 2.81 acres, the property is located at 401 W. Hampden Place in Englewood, a few blocks from the Swedish Medical Center and Porter Adventist Hospital campuses in an area known as the Englewood City Center, a city center transit-oriented, mixed-use redevelopment.

Hampden Place Medical Center houses an ambulatory surgery center, medical imaging, physiotherapy and medical offices for orthopedic, hematology-oncology and other physicians.

[realestatechannel.com]

Over the past several quarters, the medical office market has emerged as a top performer among San Antonio’s real estate sectors.

The objective now is to keep that momentum going, even as the pressures of the recession catch up to the market.

According to the fourth quarter 2009 analysis by NAI REOC San Antonio, the city’s multi tenant medical office building sector recorded an average vacancy rate of 18.5 percent — up from a rate of 16.1 percent as of fourth-quarter 2008.

While the medical office sector ended 2009 with net positive space absorption, the rate of that absorption has slowed. Over the 12 months of 2009, the market absorbed 46,661 square feet of space. By comparison, over the 12 months of 2008, the market absorbed 76,878 square feet of space.

Read More

[sanantonio.bizjournals.com]

NEWPORT BEACH, CA-Nationwide Health Properties Inc. has acquired five Southern California medical office buildings totaling 590,000 square feet from San Diego-based Pacific Medical Buildings for $211 million. As part of the deal, the locally based REIT has assumed debt of $105 million at 5.8%, maturing in 7.5 years.

The properties include a 140,000-square-foot-facility in Mission Viejo in which Nationwide acquired a 65% interest in a joint venture with Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center for $67.3 million; a 130,000-square-foot facility in Orange in which it bought a 69% interest in a joint venture with doctors associated with St. Joseph Hospital of Orange; a 190,000-square-foot building in Pasadena in which it acquired a 71% interest in a joint venture with an entity affiliated with Pacific Medical in which NHP contributed $13.5 million of cash; and two properties in San Bernardino. Those two are medical office buildings totaling 130,000 square feet in which Nationwide acquired a 55% interest in an entity affiliated with Pacific Medical that owns the buildings.

PMB Real Estate Services, a 50/50 joint venture between NHP and Pacific Medical, will continue as the property manager for all facilities. The new properties are part of a Nationwide portfolio, including mortgage loans and properties owned by unconsolidated joint ventures, that totaled 576 properties as of Dec. 31. The properties are dispersed among the following segments: 279 senior housing facilities, 197 skilled nursing facilities, 82 medical office buildings, 11 continuing care retirement communities and seven specialty hospitals.

[globest.com]

An acquisitive Arizona-based real estate investment trust has struck a deal to buy one of Mount Pleasant’s biggest medical office buildings for $10 million.

Healthcare Trust of America Inc. said last week that it has entered into an agreement to purchase the Medical Center at East Cooper, a 60,800-square-foot office complex near Bowman and Von Kolnitz roads and East Cooper Regional Medical Center.

The deal works out to about $164 a foot. The three-story building is 90 percent leased to 16 tenants.

The sale is subject to unspecified contingencies.

Mark Engstrom, executive vice president of acquisitions for Scottsdale-based Healthcare Trust, said in a statement that the “location within a fast-growing Charleston submarket” was one of the key reasons it is investing an eight-figure sum in the region when most commercial real estate buyers are still on the sidelines.

County records list the seller as American Medical International Inc.

The sale announcement comes weeks before the April 1 opening of the nearby East Cooper Medical Center, a 130-bed hospital that cost $143 million. That will replace the existing East Cooper Regional Medical Center, which is too small for the Tenet-owned health care provider’s future needs.

Setting roots

Not far from the rumble of the machinery at Boeing Co. ’s North Charleston construction site, the designer of the aerospace giant’s new jet assembly building has opened its own office. BRPH Inc. , a Florida-based firm, is settling into Trident Research Center, a cluster of office buildings off International Boulevard.

Priority No. 1 for the office’s two associates is overseeing the construction of the 610,000-square-foot main assembly building, which has a footprint of about 12 regulation-size football fields.

But Brad Harmsen, the company’s president and chief executive officer, hinted that the firm plans to pursue other aviation companies that follow Boeing into the region.

“Our goal is to expand these roots and continue to grow in the Charleston region,” he said in a statement.

[postandcourier.com]

The Medical Center at East Cooper is an approximately 60,800 square foot building located on the campus of East Cooper Regional Medical Center. The three story building is 90% leased to sixteen tenants.  East Cooper Regional Medical Center is owned and operated as a subsidiary of Tenet Healthcare and is a 100-bed acute care hospital that has served Mount Pleasant residents since 1986.  East Cooper Regional Medical Center is currently expanding and completing construction of a new 130-bed hospital that is located adjacent to the current hospital site.

“This acquisition is appealing because of its on-campus affiliation with Tenet Healthcare as well as its location within a fast growing Charleston submarket,” stated Mark D. Engstrom, Executive Vice President of Acquisitions for HTA.  ”This acquisition expands our South Carolina portfolio to approximately 1,025,000 square feet with locations adjacent to significant hospitals.”

For more information on Healthcare Trust of America, Inc. and to download the current prospectus, please visit www.htareit.com.

About Healthcare Trust of America, Inc.

Healthcare Trust of America, Inc. is a self-managed, publicly registered, non-traded, real estate investment trust.  In 2009, HTA acquired approximately $494 million in medical office and healthcare-related assets.  These assets include a total of 13 acquisitions and one other real estate-related asset, representing approximately 2.3 million square feet.  Since its formation in 2006, HTA has made 53 geographically diverse acquisitions valued at approximately $1.46 billion based on purchase price, which includes 179 buildings and two other real estate-related assets.  HTA’s portfolio totals approximately 7.4 million square feet, and includes 160 medical office buildings, six hospitals, nine skilled nursing and assisted living facilities and four other office buildings located in 21 states.

FORWARD-LOOKING LANGUAGE

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements with respect to the growth and value of HTA’s portfolio and the value that the new building adds to HTA.  Forward-looking statements are statements that are not descriptions of historical facts and include statements regarding management’s intentions, beliefs, expectations, plans or predictions of the future, within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended.  Because such statements include risks, uncertainties and contingencies, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.  These risks, uncertainties and contingencies include, but are not limited to, the following: the acquisition of the building may not be completed if the conditions to closing are not satisfied; the strength and financial condition of the building; the strength and financial condition of the tenants; uncertainties relating to the local economy of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina; uncertainties relating to changes in general economic and real estate conditions; uncertainties regarding changes in the healthcare industry; uncertainties relating to the implementation of HTA’s investment strategy; and other risk factors as outlined in HTA’s prospectus, as amended from time to time, and as detailed from time to time in HTA’s periodic reports, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

SOURCE Healthcare Trust of America, Inc.

[prnewswire.com]

JAG Associates of Frederick has acquired the St. Agnes Healthcare Center in Catonsville for $10.4 million, according to Northmarq Capital, which represented the buyer.

The 80,293-square-foot, two-story property, previously owned by Lord Baltimore Properties, was completely renovated with a new building skin.

“This is the first multi-tenant medical office building sold in the Baltimore-Washington area this year,” said Jim Kornick, a Northmarq senior vice president, in a statement. “And only two were sold during the entire year 2009. We are beginning to sense a tremendous demand for stable cash-flowing assets in the area. We already have another similar property under contract.”

He added that the deal also underscores the strength of the medical office market during a period of limited investment sales and limited debt availability.

The building, at 700 Geipe Road, is 94 percent occupied and anchored by St. Agnes Healthcare, which is a part of the Ascension Health System. The lower level of the building is leased through 2015 to the U.S. Postal Service for a mail sorting and van storage facility.

The center was built in 1969 and rebuilt in 1998 as a build-to-suit outpatient medical facility for St. Agnes Hospital.

BioMed Realty Trust buys two buildings for $14.4M

BioMed Realty Trust of San Diego has acquired a pair of laboratory buildings in Gaithersburg for $14.4 million.

RREEF North America, a real estate asset management subsidiary of Deutsche Bank, sold 55 and 65 W. Watkins Mill Road, which total 82,400 square feet and sit in the I-270 bioscience corridor.

“The West Watkins property represents an excellent investment for BioMed, expanding our footprint in Montgomery County, one of the world’s most vibrant and productive life science markets,” said Alan D. Gold, BioMed’s chairman and CEO, in a press release.

“The acquisition adds two premier tenants, MedImmune and GenVec, to BioMed’s Maryland tenant roster, which already includes world-renowned life science companies Human Genome Sciences, Novavax and Eisai,” Gold said.

The two buildings are fully leased by MedImmune, a subsidiary of AstraZeneca, and GenVec, which develops gene-based therapeutic drugs and vaccines. The acquisition increases BioMed’s presence in Maryland to about 1.2 million rentable square feet, which is 100 percent leased.

Martek expands HQ in Columbia

Martek Biosciences is expanding its headquarters in Columbia, according to Scheer Partners of Rockville, which negotiated the deal.

The company, which markets nutritional products, will take on an additional 20,000 square feet at 6480 Dobbin Road, which is owned by Preston Partners. Scheer represented Martek in the 86,367-square-foot lease, which includes administrative, laboratory and technical space.

Adam Nachlas, formerly a senior vice president with Scheer Partners who now works at Manekin Corp., was the lead broker representing Martek in its new lease. Scheer touted the lease as a sign of the strength of the region’s life science sector’s recovery.

“This company is one of the most successful health-care businesses in Maryland, and the fact that Martek continues to expand even in a sluggish economy demonstrates how well it is performing,” said Robert Scheer, founder and president of Scheer Partners, in a statement. “Executing a lease of this size is a tremendous accomplishment.”

Deer Park office complex to be sold by First Potomac

First Potomac Realty Trust announced that it has contracted to sell its Deer Park office complex in Randallstown for an undisclosed price in a deal that will result in a $2.5 million charge against income.

The Bethesda company disclosed the potential sale in its earnings announcement last week. The company said that its funds from operations fell in the fourth quarter of 2009 to $7.2 million, down from $11.8 million during the fourth quarter of 2008.

First Potomac suffered a 10.4 percent drop in net operating income for its Maryland properties last year, primarily due to an increase in vacancy and reserves for anticipated bad debt expense, particularly in the Baltimore area.

The Deer Park property, a 171,000-square-foot four-building site on Liberty Road, was acquired as part of a larger portfolio in 2004.

Re-Form signs for 130,000 square feet

Office space manager Re-Form signed to lease 130,000 square feet of warehouse and office at the Point Breeze Business Park in Baltimore, according to Preston Partners, the building’s owner.

Michael Spedden, senior vice president of Preston Partners, represented the tenant.

Re-Form offers office furniture services, including remanufacturing, space planning, project management, asset management, pickup, delivery and installation. Re-Form serves the Maryland, Delaware, Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., markets.

[gazette.net]

Nationwide Health Properties Inc., a real estate investment trust (REIT) that invests in health care facilities, recently acquired five medical office buildings (MOBs) in California from Pacific Medical Buildings LLC. Pacific Medical specializes exclusively in the development and management of MOB, outpatient facilities and parking structures for hospitals, medical groups and universities.

With the deal, Nationwide Health acquired 590,000 square feet of health care facilities. The aggregate transaction value is $211 million. The initial NOI (net operating income) yield from the properties, excluding a 190,000 square feet facility in Pasadena, California, which is in lease-up stage, is expected to be 7.6%.

Nationwide Health has continually focused on acquisitions to fuel its growth engine as demand for health care facilities is set to increase with an aging Baby Boomer generation. Furthermore, the health care sector is one of the more recession-proof real estate sectors and has persistently fared better than other sectors during the commercial real estate downturn. This offers a strong upside potential for the company.

Furthermore, Nationwide Health is structured as a triple-net lease health care REIT, which includes base rent (a regular income in the form of rent payments), preset thresholds (much like retail percentage rent clauses), and financing options (in the form of mortgage loans). The base rent and preset threshold agreements help eliminate operational risks, which are transferred to the lessee. The lessee also benefits by obtaining operational control and a larger share of profits without investments.

[zacks.com]

Providence Alaska Medical Center on Wednesday announced plans for a $150.3 million expansion, including modernization and additions to its newborn intensive care and cardiac surgery areas.

Providence executives said they will remodel 100,789 square feet of existing space and build a new 85,782-square-foot building.

The hospital hopes to begin construction in January 2011 and complete it in 2014. However, it must first get a certificate from the state, a process that could take several months.

Hospital officials described it as the biggest expansion to the core hospital since the 1990s, when Providence spent more than $100 million on renovations and additions.

More recently, Providence built a cancer center for about $79 million and two adjoining towers that are mostly medical offices for roughly $55 million each. The cancer center opened in 2007. One medical office tower was finished in 2006, and the other will be completed this year, said Providence spokeswoman Kirsten Schultz.

The hospital’s news conference announcing the expansion was in the lobby of one of the towers.

A major feature of the upcoming project will be to expand intensive newborn care and change the approach to delivering such care. Instead of having six private rooms and one large room with 47 total bassinets, under the new setup, there would be 50 private rooms and a total capacity of 66 bassinets.

“Research has taught us private rooms are the best practice,” said Dr. Lily Lou, medical director of the Level II and III newborn intensive care unit at Providence.

As testimony, Providence invited Yael and Bob Kaufman to talk about their experience in a private room at the newborn intensive care unit in November and December, when one of their twins died in the womb, and the second was delivered six weeks early by emergency Caesarean section. A private room “enabled me to live at the hospital around the clock,” said Yael Kaufman, “In my opinion, it’s really important.”

Dr. Richard Mandsager, a pediatrician and Providence Alaska Medical Center’s chief executive, said use of their newborn intensive care unit is increasing, and has exceeded the target of 65 percent occupancy every year since 2006.

Providence offers the highest level of newborn intensive care in the state, Level III, and cares for babies from across Alaska.

The maternity center will be updated and expanded, as well.

In the other major area being reworked, the cardiac surgery area will get an additional operating suite, and Providence will replace the existing cardiac operating suite with a larger room. One of the rooms will be equipped with advanced imaging technology, which will permit patients to undergo both open surgery and a less invasive procedures, such as stent placement, in the same room.

The project, which Providence has dubbed “Generations,” will be paid for mostly through savings but also through sale of tax-exempt bonds, Schultz said. Community philanthropy will make up about 3 percent of the funding, she said.

Karen Lawfer, state certificate of need coordinator, said the state has already published a public notice about Providence’s plans to give any other potential applicants the opportunity to offer similar services. The state will review whether there is a need for the expansion Providence proposes and, if so, how the proposal meets that need, she said.

If there are other similar proposals, the state will compare them, she said.

Officials at Alaska Regional Hospital in Anchorage, Providence’s main competitor, said they have no comment on Providence’s plans.

[adn.com]

LUTZ — The first new hospital in Hillsborough County in 30 years offers as much a cure for the area’s economy as it does for ailing patients.

Nearly 500 workers have now been hired to staff St. Joseph’s Hospital-North. The jobs, providing the equivalent of about 450 full-time positions, pay on average $22-$23 an hour and carry with them a $24.4 million payroll in the first year of operation.

That’s just the start.

Parts of the $225 million, three-story, 350,000-square-foot hospital are built out but not yet in use, including the mother/baby unit. Fewer than half of the hospital’s 108 beds currently are open. As more units open, the hospital will add staff, said Paula McGuiness, COO.

St. Joe’s North, which officially opened Feb. 15, in some ways represents the economic future of Hillsborough. A study released in May by the Battelle Technology Partnership Practice found that the overall Tampa region is below the national average concentration in the hospital industry, suggesting an opportunity for continued growth.

“The cluster potential in life sciences, including clinical hospitals, is tremendous for this market, which is why we have focused on that as a key driver for our community’s future economy,” said Gene Gray, Hillsborough’s economic development director.

Medically underserved

The hospital and an adjacent 50,000-square-foot medical office building fill a need in the Lutz area, which McGuiness said was medically underserved. In 2001, more than 8,000 inpatients, 16,000 emergency department patients and 14,000 outpatients from the nine ZIP codes in the new hospital’s service area traveled to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa to seek treatment, a filing with the Agency for Health Care Administration said. At the same time, the area’s population was growing dramatically, creating traffic congestion and travel delays.

Since opening, ambulance drivers have told McGuiness that taking a patient to St. Joe’s North, rather than the Tampa campus or University Community Hospital, saves about 40 minutes, giving them faster turnaround time.

ER use in the first two weeks of operation was above expectations, McGuiness said.

Roughly 8,000 people came to two community open house previews prior to the official opening.

“Before we opened the doors, they were lined up like it was the day after Thanksgiving,” McGuiness said.

Evidence-based design

What they saw looks more like a hotel or spa than a hospital.

The lobbies and hallways are filled with natural light and plants and provide views of “healing gardens” and mediation areas. All the patient rooms are private and have wood paneled floors and fabric headboards hiding medical equipment.

Floor plans in each medical/surgical room are identical, creating staff efficiency. Work stations are designed so that no nurse has to walk more than 60 feet to get to a patient, an accommodation to an aging nursing work force.

McGuiness, who started her career 34 years ago at St. Joe’s as a staff nurse, worked with a project team of health care professionals to get the best design ideas for the new facility. She and Isaac Mallah, president and CEO of St. Joseph’s-Baptist Health Care, made 13 site visits across the United States to hospitals that, like St. Joe’s North, have an all-digital work environment.

The hospital is a partner in the Pebble Project, an initiative by The Center for Health Design to provide researched and documented examples of health care facilities whose designs lead to improved patient and staff outcomes. Data from other hospital partners showed reductions in staff turnover and improved patient satisfaction.

The hospital also was designed and developed to achieve green building certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, and an application is pending.

Staff members were hired based on long-term experience and a focus on service excellence. Part of the interview process included behavioral testing for prospective employees, a pilot program for the BayCare Health System. McGuiness personally interviewed anyone in a leadership position.

Some of the hospital’s most unusual features have yet to be unveiled. For instance, all staff members wear tags with radio frequency identification features that, once activated, will identify them when they enter a patient’s room and also allow them to quickly locate the nearest piece of medical equipment.

[tampabay.bizjournals.com]

When it comes to occupancy levels, the medical office building sector has been faring a great deal better than the traditional office market, and Healthcare Trust of America Inc. is doing its level best to enhance its portfolio at a time when many office property owners are still sitting on the sidelines.

In a short six-day period, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based REIT announced four acquisition agreements for MOBs totaling 429,300 square feet from the Midwest to the South. Healthcare Trust will shell out an aggregate $83.9 million to add the properties to its rapidly growing list of holdings.

In Evansville, Ind., Healthcare Trust will snap up a five-building medical office portfolio encompassing 260,500 square feet for $45.7 million. A 53,700-square-foot portfolio of three MOBs in Hilton Head, S.C., is also on the REITs list of pending acquisitions. The portfolio, which carries a price tag of $15.3 million, contains two fully occupied structures and one building that has space available for lease.

With two deals in Texas, Healthcare Trust will increase the size of its Metropolitan Houston portfolio to more than 1 million square feet. The company plans to purchase the 60,300-square-foot Sugar Land Medical building II in Sugar Land for $12.4 million, and the 54,800-square-foot two-building portfolio in Pearland for $10.5 million. The Sugar Land property is 100 percent leased, while the Pearland complex boasts an average occupancy level of 99 percent.

It appears that Healthcare Trust is fast on its way to matching or overtaking its 2009 acquisition record. Last year, the REIT completed MOB transactions totaling $494 million. In January and early February of this year, before its most recent shopping binge, Healthcare REIT signed two deals totaling $49.1 million for properties encompassing an aggregate 182,000 square feet.

The MOB market has trumped the traditional office market all the way through the country’s economic downturn, and industry experts expect it to become even more stable in the future, particularly in light of a certain pressing issue with which the U.S. Congress is currently grappling.

“The heated topic of healthcare reform is especially relevant to the MOB market, as any measures passed by Congress could further bolster the sector,” according to Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services’ 2010 Medical Office Outlook Report. “It is estimated that if 50 percent of the 46 million individuals currently uninsured gained coverage, the added demand would require nearly 45 million square feet of MOB space beyond what is needed to satisfy normal demand trends.”

[cpexecutive.com]