The buildings are only a half mile from Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, a 547-bed teaching hospital associated with Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and the largest voluntary acute care hospital in Bergen County.

The brokers noted that the property has 60 parking spaces, a rare commodity within the Englewood Central Business District. At the time of the sale, the buildings were 81% leased to a number of physician practices and medical tenants.

Plawker, who will be the leasing agent for the new owner, said the buildings are a “natural fit” for the new owner's real estate portfolio. “Many of the tenants have been there for years. We think it's a stable asset in a fantastic location with upside potential.”

“The building's ideal location within walking distance of Englewood Hospital and Medical Center made this an attractive investment opportunity,” said Patricia Krasowski, a senior investment manager for Hampshire. “The existing medical tenant base and ample parking space enhanced the property's appeal.”

The two buildings drew considerable interest, said Bozzelli. He said that their lease space directly competes with homes along Grand and Engle Streets that have been converted to office use, but has the advantage of a professional office design with parking for patients.

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PRINCETON, NJ-Commercial real estate experts say there will be no disruption of the rising demand for medical office buildings as a result of a hitch in implementing a key provision of "Obamacare" – especially not in the Princeton area.

Announced on the cusp of the long holiday weekend, a one-year delay in enforcing penalties for some companies that do not comply with the Affordable Care Act, is causing some general confusion.

Cushman & Wakefield's Jeffrey Prezant and other market specialists say the way medical services are being delivered to uninsured people is already well into a transition away from emergency rooms to offices in the communities surrounding hospitals.

Brokers and developers are basically brushing off concern about negative impact on the demand for medical office building space resulting from the delay in penalizing companies that don't offer health insurance options – or the Republicans' unending push to repeal “Obamacare” altogether.

“If it's not today, it'll be tomorrow,” says Prezant. “If it's not Obamacare, it will be another form of Obamacare,”.

“There is inherent demand for healthcare,” says Daniel Siegel, whose company is currently at work with a partner on a new 40,000-square-foot medical/professional office building at Princeton Forrestal Center. The MOB is being developed by Beacon Medical Realty, along with Summit Associates.

“We are so bullish on Princeton, we would love to keep expanding in the Route 1 corridor,” Siegel tells GlobeSt.com, “We have taken options on two other lots adjacent to our building that is going up now. Those lots can accommodate another 40,000-square-foot building and an 80,000-square-foot building.

“The Affordable Healthcare Act can only help the market," he says, "but even in the current economic time, we are being successful in maintaining new development."

Siegel says: “Doctors have to expand, hospitals have to expand, and today they want to reach out to the community around medical campuses with their own companies and offices.”

Beaon and Summit have recently completed new medical/professional buildings in Hillsborough and also Scranton, PA that leased up quickly. Their Forrestal Professional Center building at 10 Forrestal Road South, about a mile from the new University Medical Center at Princeton in Plainsboro, is 75% pre-leased.

It will offer 16 spaces geared to various medical specialties, and will be complete by March 2014.

River Drive Construction, specialists in medical and healthcare construction, is managing the project. River Drive also has recently completed several projects:

* River Drive Surgery in Elmwood Park, a 10,000-square-foot outpatient clinic

* an Ocean Health Initiatives facility in Lakewood, and

* Quest Diagnostics' clinical laboratory in Teterboro.

River Drive Construction's president Joseph Langan notes that the Affordable Healthcare Act will add 40 million patients to the national healthcare system, be it sooner or later. He cites an industry formula that calls for 1.9 square feet of medical space for each patient. That would mean an additional 76 million square feet of medical office space will be required.

“As one the most densely populated state, New Jersey undoubtedly represents a fair share of that,” says Langan.