BlackSwan Zine

Omega Healthcare Investors, Inc. (NYSE:OHI) (the “Company”) announced the pricing of a private placement of $200 million aggregate principal amount of 71/2% senior notes due 2020 (the “Notes”). The Notes were priced at 98.278% of par value (before initial purchasers’ discount). The offering is expected to close on February 9, 2010 subject to customary closing conditions.

Medical Office Buildings, commonly referred to as MOBs, are one of the few darlings of the current real estate finance industry. They garner low rates, great terms, and even bankers’ whose commercial loan portfolios took a drubbing want to lend in that space. Need proof?

Woman’s Hospital has filed plans for its five-story medical office building at the new campus at Airline Highway and Pecue Lane. At just under 250,000 square feet, the building’s cost is pegged at $23 million, but it will ultimately be about $39 million with the tenant spaces built out, spokeswoman Jodi Conachen said.

The Southern Nevada medical-office market has been hurt by the recession and the shortage of medical professionals, analysts said. The average vacancy rate was 17 percent at the end of 2009, a slight increase from the third quarter when the rate was 16.57 percent. The vacancy rate was 15.45 percent at the end of 2008.

The only coastal emergency medical department between Oceanside and La Jolla is moving ahead on its first major upgrade in 16 years. Construction began last week on a parking garage for Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas, with crews ripping up the old north parking lot and rerouting utility lines to make way for the excavation.

Local construction starts are forecast to climb 18% this year, as increases in single-family housing construction and public works projects help end a three-year decline. Yet the gains won’t feel like much of a salve to the Chicago-area construction industry, as the $11.51-billion value of the projected starts in 2010 is just more than half the peak of $21.77 billion in 2006.

Nationwide Health Properties, Inc. (NYSE:NHP) announced that its Board of Directors declared a quarterly common stock cash dividend of $0.44 per share. The dividend will be paid on March 5, 2010 to stockholders of record on February 19, 2010.

The Vancouver Clinic has wasted little time getting construction started for its new $12 million medical office building in Battle Ground. At groundbreaking ceremonies Wednesday, the clinic kicked off the project at 2005 W. Main St., a site where it already operates a smaller office.

Rich Ludwig hopes the promise of a little extra assistance will be good for business at Trinity Terrace. On Jan. 4 the senior apartment building, part of a complex that also includes Trinity Care Center nursing home, started offering assisted living services.

Building more than 350,000 square feet of office space on Torrance’s largest remaining tract of developable land will cause “significant” traffic impacts to 22 nearby intersections, according to a just-released environmental analysis of the project.