Tarzana Medical Atrium is a 90,000-square-foot, class A medical office building located adjacent to the Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center, in Tarzana, Calif.Medical Asset ManagementIt comes as no surprise that patients today prefer to go to one location for their healthcare needs. In fact, many healthcare campuses are designed to provide full-service care, offering the patient one location as their destination. This trend is now carrying over to medical office buildings that have the ability to offer strong tenant ecosystems — a group of occupants leasing out a property that complement on another. Medical office buildings with good tenant ecosystems support easy access to services that a patient will need most of all.
Demographics play a role in this shift. Millennials (currently 23 to 38 years old) want to obtain information about healthcare easily. In addition, they value convenience and want digital access to healthcare services. Why should they go to two different locations to care for their health needs when one location can handle everything?
Doctor services are no exception to this way of thinking. While baby boomers (born from 1946 to 1964) and the aging population may not be as tech-savvy as millenials, they too want convenient communication options with doctors. These two populations, in their united, albeit differently-motivated, front, are driving the trend and popularity of medical office buildings that offer complementary services and providers that the patient may need.
In a healthy tenant ecosystem, the right mix of tenants will not compete against each other but rather complement one another and co-exist in a symbiotic relationship. To determine the best fit for tenants of a medical office space, property owners must consider the surrounding community. If the adjacent neighborhood is predominantly filled with seniors, this will determine which doctors will make the most sense as tenants. Additionally, all tenants in a medical office building should be arranged around an anchor tenant, preferably a hospital or local medical clinic, which is a key business in drawing traffic from the surrounding neighborhood.
One such medical office building that is taking this approach is the Tarzana Medical Atrium, a 90,000-square-foot, class A medical office building located adjacent to the Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center, in Tarzana, Calif. Now in its final stages of construction, it is the first new building to be completed on the campus in more than 25 years. Because of its location, the Center for Neuro Skills signed a 10-year lease to occupy 24,500 square feet. An on-site pharmacist, urgent care clinic, ambulatory surgery center would support this tenant ecosystem, making access to care simple and easy.
Another service that is considered a prime tenant is an urgent care clinic. Since these are often the first entry point for patients, who may eventually require a specialist, including an urgent care clinic on the ground floor of a medical office building offers convenient access not only to the first point of care, but potentially to any follow up that may be done with a specialist. A tenant referral and same-day appointment can be completed since a specialist may actually be down the hall or on the next floor.
Mitchell Yankowitz (mitchy@medicalasset.com) is the managing partner of Medical Asset Management, a leading full service real estate company that specializes in medical office buildings and other healthcare real estate.
