DETROIT, MI- Some consider Michigan just another Rust Belt basket case. A New York-based investment firm, however, has just announced their second major medical office acquisition in the state since 2011.
It probably won't be their last.
“We believe in the Michigan market and particularly the Detroit suburbs which are benefiting from the rebounding auto industry and other economic development initiatives,” said Jonathan L. Winer, executive vice president of Seavest Healthcare Properties LLC, which, along with KIRCO Health Partners, just bought the 149,000 SF Beaumont Medical Center in suburban Detroit.
Winer added that Seavest also has a strategy to buy facilities aligned with large, advanced health networks. The three-story Beaumont, for example, is part of the Beaumont Health System, a group of three area hospitals that leases most of the building and employs thousands of physicians, many attached to a medical school and a research institute. And in 2011, Seavest formed a joint venture with Michigan-based KIRCO and began converting a building in nearby Dearborn into an outpatient facility for the Henry Ford Medical Center. KIRCO will manage and lease both properties.
Although healthcare tends to weather even the worst recessions, Seavest keeps a close eye on the state's overall economic health. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate in Michigan fell to 8.9 percent at the end of last year, down from over 14 percent in 2009. “Investors have been slow to recognize the many positive trends taking place in the state,” said Winer, “but that is now beginning to change.”
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Brian J. Rogal
Brian J. Rogal is a Chicago-based freelance writer with years of experience as an investigative reporter and editor, most notably at The Chicago Reporter, where he concentrated on housing issues. He also has written extensively on alternative energy and the payments card industry for national trade publications.
