ROME, GA-One of the larger medical office building transactions of 2012 involved the sale of seven buildings owned by a large physician practice in northwest Georgia. During Q4 2012, the 150-year-old, 140-doctor Harbin Clinic of Rome, GA sold seven buildings for $90 million to Indianapolis-based Duke Realty Corp. Not only was the sale one of the largest healthcare real estate transactions in 2012, but it was also one of the largest provider-driven sales, otherwise known as monetizations, of the past decade. According to our research, the deal was in the top 10 provider monetizations since Healthcare Real Estate Insights was first published in 2003.

During a panel discussion concerning provider monetizations at a recent healthcare real estate conference, Kenneth Davis, president of Harbin Clinic, was on hand to give insight into how the deal took place and why Harbin decided to sell the buildings. Harbin first began considering the possibility of selling most of its buildings late in the 2000s, at about the same time healthcare reform was being enacted.

“For one thing, we knew (under reform that) revenue was going to decrease in time, which was going to lower our operating margins,” Davis said. “We also knew that we were going to have significant and new capital expenses,” including expanding its electronic medical records, building an accountable care model, and recruiting physicians in order to compete with other systems.