Medical suites and urgent care centers are filling spaces left vacant since the recession as the industry shifts to more outpatient care.
Hospitals are consolidating. Neighborhood doctors are joining physician groups. Outpatient facilities are proliferating, and nurse practitioners are playing more prominent roles in providing care.
In response, across the Lower Hudson Valley, office parks and retail storefronts are becoming medical suites and walk-in care centers, giving a boost to the region’s commercial real estate market by filling spaces left vacant since the recession.
“Many years ago, office landlords never wanted medical tenants in their buildings for multiple reasons,” said Howard Greenberg, a commercial real estate expert in White Plains.
Medical facilities generally require more parking than other uses, and landlords were concerned medical tenants might not fit well into the tenant mix in an otherwise corporate environment.
“But it changed because buildings need tenants,” he said. “Also, there’s been an explosion of medical use with these big groups and hospitals coming into the area.”
Medical tenants also have their pluses: Among them, they bring some stability for landlords because they tend to stay longer after making significant investments to renovate their new spaces, Greenberg said. While renovations for many new tenants are paid for by landlords, medical tenants generally shoulder a majority of those costs because outfitting their spaces is a lot more expensive, requiring additional plumbing, sinks, divisions or walls, he said.
