Companies (June 2007)

Granite Partners moves to senior sector

MARKETER OF MOBs HIRES INDUSTRY VETERAN TO LEAD FIRM’S NEW ENDEAVOR

By John Mugford
New York — Granite Partners, LLC, a New York-based real estate investment banking firm that in recent years began marketing medical office buildings (MOBs) for clients, recently announced that it is planning to expand into senior living facilities.

To move the firm into the senior housing arena, Granite Partners recently hired Meredith Oppenheim as senior vice president. Ms. Oppenheim has experience with a variety of firms and in a variety of capacities in the senior housing sector, having worked for owner/operators as well as developers. Her resume includes posts with Marriott Senior Living, Sunrise Senior Living and K. Hovnanian. She has also been an advisor on senior housing transactions to major investment banks, private equity firms and hedge funds.

“Senior housing is a natural extension of Granite’s real estate investment banking platform,” said John Lyons, president and chief executive officer of Granite Partners, in a press release. “Meredith Oppenheim brings senior housing experience that spans the globe, extends across all products, and covers the full life cycle of a deal through disposition. Her presence will be critical to our success in this sector, given the opportunity, complexity and diversity of this business.”
As noted, Granite Partners in the last several years has built a healthcare real estate practice focused primarily on MOBs, as well as ambulatory surgery centers and specialty hospitals. The firm has raised about $1.6 billion in transactions involving about 10 million square feet of healthcare real estate. Officials say the firm is looking for similar success in senior living real estate.

Jeffrey Cooper, Granite Partners’ senior managing director overseeing the firm’s healthcare activities, said in a prepared statement that the firm looks to leverage its relationships in healthcare real estate as it diversifies into senior housing. He added that making the move to senior housing helps Granite meet the needs of its clients, “including strategic and financial investors as well as owner/operators.”

Ms. Oppenheim said in a statement that the “senior housing climate is ripe for Granite Partners’ sophisticated investment banking approach, as the industry continues to emerge as a mainstream asset class with positive demographic trends, consolidation in a still-fragmented market, and strong returns on investment.”

 

 

First Colony plans

LEED MOB project

in Tennessee

BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – First Colony Healthcare LLC of Charlotte, N.C., recently announced that it is pursuing the building of what it says will be the first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-certified Green Building project in Brentwood, Tenn.

First Colony officials announced the plan at the recent closing of a land acquisition in Westgate Commons, where construction begins in the fall on The Colony at Westgate. The project would compose a 35,000 square foot MOB, a 63,000 square foot conventional office building and an 87-space underground parking garage.

In a news release, First Colony Healthcare’s president, Dennis Norvet, stated: “This emphasis on responsible development is one we plan to apply to all of our future projects.”

The leasing firm on the project is Nashville Commercial/Cushman & Wakefield. The project would be the fifth for First Colony Healthcare, an affiliate of First Colony Corp.

For the Record

Indianapolis-based Duke Realty Corp. (NYSE:DRE) recently announced that it had $105.1 million of developments in the first quarter (Q1) of 2007 – $32 million of which were in the company’s Bremner Duke Healthcare Real Estate division. The medical projects include a 20,000 square foot MOB in Morrisville, N.C., that is 100 percent leased to Duke University; and a 120,000 square foot MOB that is about 50 percent leased in Murfreesboro, Tenn…. The team of HuntonBrady Architects of Orlando, Fla., and Ellenzwieg Associates Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., has been chosen to design a $33 million building at the University of Central Florida’s College of Medicine at the UCF Health Sciences Campus in Lake Nona, Fla. The four-story, 100,000 square foot building is currently in the programming and conceptual design phase. It will house both a medical library and medical instructional spaces and is scheduled for completion in fall 2009… Heart Hospital Baylor Plano (Texas), an all-digital, 68-bed cardiovascular center designed by Chicago-based RTKL Associates Inc., recently opened its doors. The $106 million, 197,000 square foot heart hospital is adjacent to Baylor Regional Medical Center in Plano, which is part of Dallas-based Baylor Health Care System. The bowtie-shaped patient tower is a partnership of Baylor and 86 cardiovascular physicians and surgeons. Additional consultants included Trammell Crow Healthcare Services as program managers, Dallas-based MEDCO Construction Co. as the general contractor and Zinser/Grossman Structural as the structural engineer. q