Moving Away From The Mothership: Satellite Healthcare Campuses Embrace Multimillion-Dollar Expansion, Specialized Services

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When Texas Medical Center-headquartered healthcare systems began acquiring land outside of the Inner Loop, most secured more land than they initially built up.

Many of those satellite campuses are now under multimillion-dollar expansions as they increasingly stand on their own for specialized care rather than as feeder hospitals for the TMC.

Methodist West Campus (Photo Credit: Houston Methodist Houston)

“You cannot innovate from a space perspective in the Medical Center like you can in some of the new hospitals that are located away from the urban core,” Wolff Cos. Executive Vice President Carolyn Wolff Dorros said. “The suburban hospital expansion is transforming these facilities into mini medical centers.”

Swelling Up In The Suburbs

Nearing space capacity at the Texas Medical Center, hospitals turned to Houston’s booming submarkets — Sugar Land, The Woodlands and Katy — for expansion.

 Demand spiked due to the influx in residents, who increasingly prefer healthcare providers and services, from regular checkups to more complex concerns, closer to their home,” Colliers Senior Vice President Coy Davidson said. “There are no longer just feeder campuses for the mothership — the suburban campuses provide top-notch specialized care.”

Most healthcare procedures, excluding services like heart and organ transplants, will be offered at these centers. All of the expansions share one common thread: a desire to offer the same advanced quality service as the flagship hospitals in the Texas Medical Center.

Tracking The Expansion

Houston Methodist System is under construction on two hospital expansions in Sugar Land and The Woodlands. The Sugar Land hospital launched a $60M expansion project to improve its women’s health services in April. The plan includes constructing a three-story, 30,500 SF building and renovating the existing Sweetwater Pavilion. The facility has experienced an increase in patients from communities outside of Fort Bend County, including Waller, Austin, Brazoria, Wharton and Victoria, according to Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital CEO Chris Siebenaler.

“Fort Bend continues to be one of the fastest-growing counties in the U.S., which drives the demand for women’s health services,” Siebenaler said.

A rendering of the The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (Photo Credit: Courtesy of MD Anderson)

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center is opening a three-story, 208K SF building in The Woodlands. Serving as an extension of MD Anderson in The Woodlands, the outpatient clinic will feature similar treatment and supportive services, plus new diagnostic and screening services.

It is expected to welcome patients in the spring.  What specialized services are being built out is determined by the needs of the area. In Katy, the home of an eight-time state champion high school football team, Memorial Hermann is investing $15M to construct a 50K SF sports and medicine and human performance facility. The project will be on the Memorial Hermann Katy Hospital campus and provide targeted medical care and athletic training for professionals athletes, youth athletes and active adults.

“Another hospital expansion in Katy is providing a cost-saving solution for patients,” Dorros said.

Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus, the first community hospital designed exclusively for children, opened Texas Children’s Urgent Center adjacent to its emergency room in September. Of the 12 clinics for TCH, this is the second to open steps away from one of its hospitals.

“Patients are allowed to come to either facility and be directed to the appropriate facility depending on the severity of the visit,” Dorros said. “Having both options can lower unnecessarily high hospital bills, shorten wait times and increase use of the appropriate healthcare options. That is such a better patient experience, Patients are getting the right care at the right time.”

Learn more about healthcare-related development opportunities at Bisnow’s National Healthcare South event at the InterContinental Houston Medical Center Feb. 27.

 

Source: Bisnow

An Overview Of The Medical Office Market

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The average asking rent for medical offices reached the highest level on record in the second quarter of 2018, rising 1.4 percent year-over-year to $22.90 per sq. ft., according to a late December report from CBRE.

The firm pointed to tight market conditions and the completion of new, high-quality space as reasons for the continued rent increases.

“Rents increased in two-thirds of the markets tracked by CBRE and grew fastest in some of the markets with the lowest vacancy rates, including Nashville, Manhattan, Louisville, Seattle, and Indianapolis,” Andrea Cross, Americas head of office research, CBRE, said in a statement.

Another factor is that health systems are increasingly using lower-cost outpatient centers. These facilities enable health systems to provide services closer to where patients live. According to CBRE, the total number of outpatient centers grew by more than 50 percent to approximately 41,000 from 2005 to 2016. In addition, outpatient center employment has more than doubled since 2003, and grew 3.5 percent year-over-year in October 2018, compared with 2 percent annual growth in overall healthcare employment.

“Healthcare systems are increasingly catering to patients as consumers—rather than simply users—of healthcare services,” Mark Lamp, executive managing director, healthcare, CBRE, said in a statement. “They are creating outpatient facilities that provide a more ‘hotel-like’ experience—and at a lower cost than the more expensive hospital services—with technology-enabled check-in, abundant natural light and incorporated outdoor spaces, and patient care concierges trained to support guests with any needs.”

On the development front, CBRE‘s report concluded that medical office development strongly correlates with population growth, with Phoenix, Houston, Dallas/Ft. Worth and Atlanta among the top markets for total completions from the third quarter of 2017 to the second quarter of 2018, along with Minneapolis/St. Paul, a leading healthcare cluster. Houston, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Atlanta, Chicago, the Inland Empire, Kansas City and Boston rank among the top markets for square footage under construction.

Click here to view NREI’s ‘An Overview Of The Medical Office Market Slideshow’. This gallery takes a look at the fundamentals in the top 30 markets ranked by vacancy rates as of the second quarter of 2018, but also includes stats on net absorption, asking rents and the amount of space under construction in each market.

 

Source: NREI

2019 Forecast For New Research Labs: Construction Innovations Help Accelerate Scientific Discoveries

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Researchers and other scientists who have access to high-performance research laboratories are pioneering breakthrough discoveries in medicine, science and biotechnology.

From the medical solutions that are the hallmark of Washington University to the vital research that will take place at the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) in Manhattan, Kansas, sophisticated lab environments support the region’s research-driven enterprises.

Experts in the design and construction of lab spaces believe several factors are shaping the next phase of research environments in 2019 and beyond. Each trend supports the universal goals of accelerating innovation, attracting and retaining top talent, and bolstering an organization’s overall competitiveness.

McCarthy collaborates with world-class architectural and engineering partners in building the next generation of these advanced research facilities.

Innovative Visualization Streamlines Construction

The desire to bring new research space online as quickly as possible is driving a shift toward fast-track construction schedules.

Virtual design and construction technologies streamline the construction process and enable the offsite prefabrication of many building components — from exterior drywall or curtainwall systems to equipment racks, piping, ductwork and electrical conduit.

“Prefabrication helps us save time and optimize quality by assembling components in a controlled offsite environment vs. building them in the field,” says McCarthy Project Director Seth Kelso, who oversees construction of the NBAF project.

Visualization tools such as 3D modeling and virtual and augmented reality allow future users of a space to realistically experience it — and give valuable feedback to improve it — at an early stage when modifications can be made with minimal impact to the budget or schedule.

“It may be difficult for some users to understand two-dimensional drawings or even a 3D model, but with VR and AR, they can put on goggles and be immediately transported inside a space that we’ve modeled,” says Kelso.

In recent years, there’s been an evolution from the traditional design-bid-build method of construction to design-build and other methods where the construction manager is brought onboard at the same time or shortly after an architect is selected.

“I fully support bringing in the construction team as early as possible,” says Josh Meyer, managing principal at Jacobs Engineering. Under his leadership, Jacobs has been involved in more than 300 lab buildings totaling over 50 million square feet. I’m asked by clients all the time how much projects are going to cost, but I’m not a cost estimator. The earlier you bring in people that really understand construction costs and local market conditions, the better.”

Protecting The Health And Safety Of Researchers

Safety is a top priority within every lab environment, but it’s especially vital for public health labs that conduct research related to infectious diseases, biological agents and other sensitive areas.

“Building these high-containment research labs and vivarium spaces like those at NBAF requires specialized equipment and precise construction techniques, with very stringent requirements and no tolerance for deficiencies,” says Kelso.

Located within the Kansas City Animal Health Corridor, the state-of-the-art NBAF facility will study diseases that threaten both America’s animal agricultural industry and public health. To be operated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, it will be the only U.S. lab for large animals constructed to meet biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) — the highest containment level established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The NBAF facility is the only lab of its kind at that scale and complexity and, like most U.S. public health labs, it will be the best in the world,” says Daniel Watch, science and technology practice leader at Perkins+Will, the project’s lead architect.

Promoting Team-Based Research

A new era of team-based research has ushered in the need for flexible spaces with advanced technology to facilitate ongoing collaboration among colleagues who may be located down the hall or halfway around the world.

“Today’s organizations are thoughtful about setting up research teams that integrate people from a wide range of backgrounds and locations,” says Watch. “A researcher in St. Louis might be connected to a team in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, or Beijing, China.”

A growing number of institutions are also building lab environments to accommodate unique collaborations with external partners.

“I’m seeing a lot more maker space, accelerator space and other innovation space that brings in partners from industry, which is exciting,” says Meyer. “If researchers can go from their lab to innovation space that’s really close — either in the same building or nearby on campus — it can help drive innovation.”

Because of the digital transformation of the R&D process, traditional “wet labs” are shrinking while flex space and office areas for computational science are growing. Smaller, more sophisticated lab and medical imaging equipment can be stacked and tied into the technology infrastructure to support data analysis within a compact footprint.

“With the number of high-quality projects that have come online within the last several years, it’s much harder to recruit and retain people in substandard space,” Meyer says. “The competition is fierce and it’s one of the biggest reasons we’re seeing an uptick in the number of new research facilities for institutional clients.”

Just as close collaboration drives successful research, it’s also a key component in the construction of new research facilities.

“Lab projects require ongoing collaboration between design and construction teams, together with the client, to align and achieve project goals,” says Kelso.

 

Source: St. Louis Biz Journal