The 52,000 square foot medical office building is 100% leased and strategically located to serve as the gateway to the new $1 billion-plus Martin Luther King Jr. Medical Campus
LOS ANGELES and WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., July 22, 2020 – Seavest Healthcare Properties LLC has acquired the newly built 52,000 square foot Martin Luther King (MLK) Jr. Community Hospital medical office building (MOB) on the campus of the MLK Jr. Community Hospital near Los Angeles.
The $43.25 million acquisition at 12021 S. Wilmington Ave. in Willowbrook, Calif. closed July 14. Trammell Crow Company was the seller.
Jonathan “John” Winer, Senior Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer of the White Plains-based healthcare real estate investment firm, said this “core acquisition” is part of the firm’s latest fund, Seavest Properties V.
“Seavest invests across the entire medical office and outpatient facility spectrum, from development to value-add to core properties,” Mr. Winer says. “This investment fit squarely in the core strategy. Seavest Properties V is well capitalized, and we intend to use this fund to pursue additional acquisition and development opportunities throughout the country.”
He added, “With this acquisition, our portfolio now consists of about 2.4 million square feet of strategic medical office buildings and outpatient facilities including over 400,000 square feet of properties in development with our partners. In California, this is our firm’s third acquisition, all of which are located in Los Angeles and San Francisco.”
The two-story MOB is ideally located as the gateway entrance to a recently constructed $1 billion-plus medical campus that includes the 131-bed Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital, a not-for-profit acute-care provider, as well as other services.
Mr. Winer says said the hospital, which opened in 2016, and the MOB, which opened in March, are filling an important community need.
“The previous hospital in the area closed in 2007, which left more than a million residents underserved,” he explained. “Then, in 2010, a unique public-private partnership formed between Los Angeles County, regents from the University of California and the Martin Luther King Jr. Los Angeles Healthcare Corporation to build the new hospital campus. This collaborative initiative is giving residents access to state-of-the-art healthcare facilities, multiple medical specialties and high-quality physicians and other medical staff.”
David Braunstein, Seavest Vice President, Acquisitions, says the MOB is fully leased to MLK Los Angeles Healthcare Corporation, the not-for-profit organization formed by the county to operate the new hospital campus. The facility includes an ambulatory surgery center, provider care space, wound care, telehealth, imaging, dental, space for sterile processing and a pharmacy. There is also expansion space for additional services.
Although the marketing process for the MOB began just before the COVID-19 outbreak, Mr. Braunstein says he was able to work closely with Seavest’s due diligence providers to keep the transaction on track. He commented “At a time like this, it is our established relationships that helped carry the day. Everyone just jumped in and figured out how to work under the constraints to make this happen on schedule.” Fortunately, Seavest officials had toured the facility, just days before the outbreak broke into public view.
Chris Bodnar and Lee Asher, Vice Chairmen of CBRE and head of CBRE U.S. Healthcare Capital Markets, brokered the sale. The new MOB was developed by the Los Angeles office of Trammell Crow Company and designed by the Los Angeles office of HKS Architects.