Doctors Buy Land, Plan Medical Office Campus

CHULA VISTA, CA-With insurance companies ruling the roost in many instances, nest eggs within the medical industry aren’t what they used to be, sending doctors beyond their traditional borders in search of additional income. One field they’ve entered is real estate and a partnership between Dr. Michael Menihan, M.D. and Dr. Robert Olson, D.D.S. has plans for a five-building, 73,000-sf medical office campus in Chula Vista. The project has penciled out at some $20 million or $272/sf. The doctors acquired the 5.5-acre site in mid-2004 for roughly $10/sf.The project will be constructed in two phases with development of two buildings already underway. In one building, Lenihan, Selecky & Chadha Orthopedics, currently located in Chula Vista next to Sharp Hospital, will occupy space in a 21,500-sf facility. The two-story building has also leased space to an outpatient surgery center, a physical therapy group and an imaging center. Olson, a dentist, will fill the second building, a single-story 10,000-sf facility. Construction on the first phase is set for a 2006 occupancy date.Originally, the entire project was set as a single phase project, but those plans were adjusted due to the Chula Vista Fire Station occupying a temporary structure on a 10,000-sf parcel on site. The fire department will relocate to a permanent station sometime in 2006.The second phase will commence once the fire department vacates. Specs on phase two include one, two-story 23,000-sf and two, single-story 10,000-sf buildings. Paul Braun of Colliers International is marketing space in those buildings.Besides the space they will occupy, the doctors will maintain an entreprenurial bent by owning and leasing out the other three buildings. “Instead of paying high medical office lease rates, they now have a vested interest in the buildings they do business in,” says John Turpit, director of corporate and developer services for Robbins Jorgensen Christopher, an architecture firm with offices in San Diego and Newport Beach, which has been selected to design the project. “Lenihan, Selecky & Chadha Orthopedics is one of the first San Diego medical practices to implement this build-to-suit-to-own process, and we expect that many other doctors will follow suit in the near future,” Turpit tells Globest.com.