St. Anthony to break ground on new office building: Lease-to-buy deal offered to tenants
by Jerry Shottenkirk
The Journal Record

5/18/2006 OKLAHOMA CITY - St. Anthony Hospital will break ground at 10 a.m. Friday on its future Medical Office Building at NW Ninth Street, between Dewey Avenue and Walker Avenue. As it does so, it is also presenting future tenants with an exclusive offering.

St. Anthony Hospital President Joe Hodges said the hospital is working with the Minnesota-based Frauenshuh Healthcare Real Estate Solutions and is offering physicians the opportunity to invest in a "Physicians Leasing and Ownership" program.

"We are providing an investment opportunity for physicians so that they can become equity owners in the building," Hodges said. "We did a national search for a real estate developer who specializes in medical office buildings and who would give equity ownership to the physicians. It's a nice partnership with Frauenshuh Healthcare Real Estate Solutions."

He said Frauenshuh Healthcare Real Estate Solutions was successful with a similar facility in St. Louis, and that is one reason St. Anthony Hospital decided to work with them.

"They gave us the best deal for our physicians," Hodges said.

A published report stated that the 80,000-square-foot Medical Office Building is scheduled for completion in the summer of 2007. The four-story $15 million building will house an Imaging Center, the Rapp Foundation Education Center and physicians' offices. The building is a part of the new St. Anthony Hospital Campus Plan that will be completed over the course of the next 10 years.

"The Medical Office Building is important for St. Anthony because there is such an excitement and energy in Midtown that we don't have any more room," he said. "We want St. Anthony's physicians to move onto our campus, but there was no more office space. Our hospital will lease 20,000 square feet for our new education center."

Hodges said the education center will have an outdoor view overlooking downtown Oklahoma City.

"We'll lease out the space to community groups who can come and have a community event," he said. "It will hold 500 people. We'll use the space for continuing computer education for staff and physicians and for continuing education for our nurses and for orientations."

The hospital is working on providing patients with more street-level parking and cover access for physicians and patients throughout the campus, in addition to exploring a vendor relationship in an effort to provide a coffee-deli bar at the Medical Office Building.

Hodges said St. Anthony Hospital's campus is more than a million square feet and takes up nearly four square blocks. While the hospital will continue to own the land where the new office building is located, it will not own the building.

"This is an exciting time for Oklahoma City and Midtown in particular," he said. "In five years, I don't believe people will be able to recognize what happened on St. Anthony's campus and the surrounding area."

The builder of the St. Anthony Medical Office Building is the Flintco Companies, and the architect is ADG - Architectural Design Group

Richard Wicka, executive vice president of Frauenshuh Healthcare Real Estate Solutions, said tenants of the St. Anthony Medical Office Building are now being offered ownership in the building, even before it is built.

"Tenants step in upon the completion of the building," Wicka said. "Our structure offers anyone who occupies space at the building the option to buy a percentage of the building equal to the space they lease divided by total footage. We're working on finalizing leases with a handful of physicians."

He said about 15 to 20 doctors will be able to lease space to own, but he was unable to discuss the price per square foot.

"We do health-care real estate nationwide," Wicka said. "It's at its peak right now. This is our first project in Oklahoma City. It is difficult for our competitors, who are usually institutional players, to be as flexible," Wicka said.

He said the Physicians Leasing and Ownership program allows great hospitals to attract talented physicians and to situate them on campus.

Founded in 1898, St. Anthony Hospital is a 615-bed tertiary care facility specializing in cardiology, oncology, surgery and behavioral medicine.

This new office building along with the recently completed addition to the east side of the adjacent hospital building are the main elements that will relocate the primary entrance for the hospital from the old Dewey entrance on the west. The hospital plans to add some surface parking and a lot of landscaped area between the new building and the new 10th and Walker round-a-bout.

Also, Saint Anthony has agreed to maintain the landscaping of the new round-a-bout, but unfortunately, the city has not done a very good job of getting the landscaping in shape to hand its care off to Saint's. Weeds need to be removed, a few trees need to be replaced and a little truck traffic damage to the planting beds repaired. Hopefully, that will take place soon, so that the investment in the area doesn't suffer a set back.

__________________
The Old Downtown Guy

It will take decades for Oklahoma City's
downtown core to regain its lost gritty,
dynamic urban character, but it's exciting
to observe and participate in the transformation.

This is really cool,I wish I lived nearby I would help keep the weeds pulled.Where are the neighborhood assn. people?OKC ROCKS