Outpatient Projects: MOBs planned for heart of Woodlands

PISULA DEVELOPMENT CO. IS BUILDING 20,000 AND 50,000 SQUARE FOOT FACILITIES

By John Mugford

In an area that is emerging as a focal point of The Woodlands, Texas, two new medical office buildings (MOBs) are will soon be part of the commercial real estate lineup.

One of the buildings, a 20,000 square foot facility, is nearing completion and should be ready for tenants in January. The other MOB, with 50,000 square feet, should be completed by May 2012, according to Tom Pisula, CEO and founder of The Woodlands-based Pisula Development Co.

Pisula is the developer of the two-MOB complex, which is known as Kuykendahl Professional Plaza. It is being built on a 10-acre site at the intersection of Kuykendahl Road and Flintridge Drive, near an H-E-B supermarket in the Indian Springs Shopping Center. The property includes two pad sites for retail uses.

According to Tom Pisula, the founder and CEO of the development company, the first MOB is about 75 percent leased.

“There are just a last couple of spaces and we have quite a few tenants interested in those,” says Mr. Pisula. Pre-leasing will begin on the second MOB soon, he adds.

One of the future tenants in the first MOB, Kuykendahl Professional Plaza I, is Dr. Enrique T. Quintero of Allergy & Asthma Associates. He described the area near the MOB complex and shopping center as the new and emerging “center point” of the Woodlands, making it a good place for the MOBs as well as his practice.

“Moving to this location will offer more convenience to our patients,” he said in a statement. He noted that the area surrounding the future MOB complex continues to grow.

Mr. Pisula says leasing activity for Kuykendahl Professional Plaza has been “brisk” because a number of physicians and physician practices have been looking for space in what he called the “more central” part of the planned community located north of Houston.

He also notes that the community continues to grow, as it has since he moved the area more than 15 years ago.

“The Woodlands was founded in the 1970s, and when I moved here in the mid-1990s the population was about 30,000, and now it’s about 130,000,” Mr. Pisula says. “And in addition to that, Exxon Mobil is building a new campus here that will bring in 15,000 to 17,000 employees. The growth is certainly driving the demand for more medical services.”

In the meantime, on a site about five miles from Kykendahl Professional Plaza, Mr. Pisula and his company are continuing the development of the St. Luke’s Medical Arts Center III on the campus of St. Luke’s The Woodlands Hospital. Construction started in March on the 100,000 square foot building, which will be LEED (Leadership In Energy and Environmental Design) Silver certified by the U.S. Green Building Council. It is slated for completion in May 2012 and, according to Mr. Pisula, is about 50 percent preleased.

The Woodlands-based Pinecroft Realty has the leasing assignment for both of Pisula’s new developments.

For Mr. Pisula, The Woodlands has been a good place for his healthcare development firm, as he has developed 18 buildings since the early 2000s. He adds that his firm has four buildings planned in Texas, including two freestanding emergency departments (FEDs) in San Antonio.

In late 2010, the company sold a portfolio of MOBs to Nashville, Tenn.-based Healthcare Realty Trust (NYSE: HR), which is also a partner with Pisula on a current development near St. Luke’s The Woodlands Hospital. According to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing on HR’s website, the company closed on the acquisition of four buildings in The Woodlands on Sept. 23 for $70 million.