Medical Center Of The Rockies In Loveland, Colorado, Launches $280M Expansion

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UCHealth officially broke ground on a major expansion project at Medical Center of the Rockies that is designed to help meet the growing health care needs of Northern Colorado.

A new tower is part of the expansion plan at Medical Center of the Rockies in Loveland. (PHOTO CREDIT:: UCHealth)

The project includes a new tower that will be built on the north side of the hospital, the creation of a cancer center, an expanded emergency department and additional imaging and cardiac spaces.

When complete, the project will increase the hospital’s bed capacity from 191 to 287 with room to grow up to 323 beds. Staffing will grow as well; UCHealth expects to hire more than 250 employees before the expansion opens.

“Northern Colorado has grown significantly since 2007, when MCR first opened its doors in Centerra,” said Kevin Unger, president and chief executive officer of the hospital. “We have proudly served our growing community here, and we are now thrilled to expand our facility and capacity to continue to meet the needs of our patients today and into the future.”

The cancer center is expected to begin seeing patients next year, and the new tower is expected to open in 2026.

The $280 million project will include:

  • A five-story tower that will house a surgical intensive care unit, a progressive care unit and a trauma surgical unit. The tower will also house a radiation oncology department that will feature high-dose radiation therapy, which patients currently travel to metro Denver to receive, and a linear accelerator.
  • The cancer center will feature a new gynecological oncology clinic, a medical oncology clinic and an infusion center.
  • The emergency department will expand to include 22 new patient-care rooms and a new entrance.
  • A new cardiac catheterization lab, a cardiac device lab, a structural heart lab and a vascular lab will be added to the south side of the existing hospital building.
  • Imaging will be expanded with additional CT, ultrasound and MRI services and an interventional radiology suite on the east side of the existing hospital building.
  • Parking will be expanded for patients and staff.

The expansion is part of the original plans for the campus to accommodate service growth over time. The new tower will be connected directly to the existing facility and carry forward its Northern Colorado design character.

Haselden Construction is the general contractor on the project and is supported by The S/L/A/M Collaborative, the architect; BHA Design Inc, the landscape architect; RMH Group, the mechanical, electrical and plumbing team; Olsson, the civil engineer; S.A. Miro, the structural engineer; and Gallun Snow, the interior designer.

 

Source: BizWest

Coming To A Consensus About Healthcare Deals

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Social and cultural shifts are making big impacts on the way healthcare facilities are built, managed and used. So said panelists at the recent GlobeSt. Healthcare conference in Scottsdale, AZ.

A rise in med-tail services, and the robust growth of life sciences have provided new avenues for CRE executives to invest and build medical properties and panelists said that business discipline has never been as important as it is today.

When Angie Weber, first vice president at CBRE, asked Ross Caulum, regional real estate director at Trinity Health, about what are some of the ways that owners, brokers and developers can do to make their life easier at Trinity Health, he simply said to “have patience,” noting that it takes a while to make a decision, then joked about rethinking that decision once everyone comes to a consensus.

“The way that the best transactions happen is when there is a compelling business case for advancing healthcare delivery, and that takes time,” Caulum said. “Today’s medical office building isn’t like yesterday’s MOB. The MOB of then was five days a week, 8-5. Not, it is seven days a week and is about providing the platform of delivering healthcare where and when it needs to be. But the challenge of that is finding the staff and the physicians, noting that there is a major shortage. The labor shortage, he noted, has affected the thought process in real estate decisions. We constantly have to ask ‘will the staff be there? You have to get to a stabilized staffing cost and I am not sure how it will get done.”

 “Back in the day, staffing wasn’t part of the thought process,” Weber explained “Now, decisions are being made with staffing in the forefront of the mind.”

“There has become more business discipline because of the capital constraint and the pressure on profitability too,” said Caulum. “You have to really walk through what the business case is, view it with open eyes, and not just think you can get the staff onboard because when you look at the past few years and track record, it hasn’t happened that way.”

 

Source: GlobeSt.

GI Partners Launches Health-Care Investment Platform

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Private alternative investment firm GI Partners is establishing UDLR Healthcare, a venture which will focus on investing in medical outpatient buildings.

The platform is a partnership between GI Partners and a team of former executives from Healthcare Trust of America.

The focus of the new partnership will be on medical outpatient buildings located in key markets, near demographic growth centers, as well as adding value through capital improvement. An initial property investment is set to close this month.

Previous HTA CFO Robert Milligan will lead UDRL Healthcare and will serve as the platform’s CEO. He will be joined by former HTA executives Todd Sloan, Olivia Waalboer, Jeff Spiller and Austin Brooker.

Joyce Chow, Principal at GI Partners, said in prepared remarks that the decision to create the platform comes as a result of increasing demand for high-quality medical facilities. In July 2022, HTA merged with Healthcare Realty Trust Inc.

Founded in 2001, GI Partners raised more than $42 billion in capital since its inception and has a real estate strategy that focuses on specialized domains, including technology, sciences and health-care properties.

According to CommercialEdge, the company has a footprint of approximately 11.4 million square feet, with investment mostly focused on office building assets, life science buildings and a few medical office properties acquired before launching the UDLR Healthcare platform. Among those is the 140,913-square-foot uCity Square, a Class A medical office in Philadelphia, purchased in 2021 for $79.5 million.

Investment Opportunity In Health-Care Real Estate

What used to be an alternative asset class, MOB is now considered a mainstream investment sector. The asset is recession-proof and despite a lower transaction volume compared to the previous years, medical outpatient properties have a low vacancy rate with stable tenants.

In a recent MOB Outlook series, experts weighed in on the state of health-care investment. Owners are looking to broaden their portfolios and despite the influence of macroeconomic factors, there is a general confidence that the sector will continue to fare well in the upcoming year.

 

Source: CPE