After sitting mostly vacant since 2018, an aging medical center has been refreshed and converted into a new flagship location for Select Medical in Orlando, Florida.
After initially considering the possibility of converting the facility into a speculative multi-tenant office and surgery center, plans for the building changed over the course of negotiations between the building ownership, Holladay Properties, and Select Medical, who had expressed interest in occupying the entire space at the 1980s-era facility.
At the end of negotiations, Select Medical signed a long-term lease, although preparing the older medical offices into a modern critical care hospital would require the work of architects, engineers, contractors and regulatory experts that took months to complete.
The new Select Specialty hospital located at the Orlando Health Dr. Phillips Hospital campus will fill an important gap in the community’s healthcare needs. The new hospital will offer 63 beds across 72,000 square feet of space, treating patients with chronic, medically complex issues, illnesses, and injuries such as stroke, brain injuries and neurological disorders, spinal cord injuries, amputation and other orthopedic conditions.
For the “sheer complexity in transforming a medical office building into a hospital,” as one judge noted, as well as its community impact, the deal earned a 2024 CoStar Impact Award for lease of the year in Orlando, as judged by real estate professionals familiar with the market.
About the Deal: Located at 7450 Sandlake Commons Blvd. at the Orlando Health Dr. Phillips Hospital Campus, the new hospital provides 72,000 square feet of space and 63 beds. The facility was originally built in 1989 and renovated as part of lease negotiations between Select Medical and Holladay Properties, the building owner.
What the Judges Said: "Successful examples of adaptive redevelopment are in short supply in this market and in the country as a whole,” said Ike Cottle, president and CEO of Green Slate Land and Development. “We will need more of these deals and the professionals who worked on this deal will be able to tackle future opportunities," Cottle added.
Gregg Ickes, president of real estate services at Foundry Commercial, said, "This was a creative approach to add more needed hospital beds into the heart of our community. The regulatory hurdles and approach to pull of this scale of healthcare transaction is impressive.”
They Made it Happen: Jeff Ottman, partner and senior vice president of development at Holladay Properties; Brian Wilcox, vice president of healthcare brokerage at Holladay Properties, and Lucas Brush, manager of development and acquisitions at Holladay Properties.