SANTA FE, N.M.—Meridian, a full-service real estate owner, operator, and developer of healthcare and life science real estate, has announced that the firm has closed escrow on the purchase of an 18-acre parcel of vacant land in Santa Fe, with the intent to develop a 95,000-square-foot, multi-specialty medical office building and comprehensive cancer care center. Construction commenced at the end of March 2023, with completion slated for July 2024.

The land is located at 4200 Beckner Road, in close proximity to Presbyterian Santa Fe Medical Center in the Las Soleras Master Plan district.

“This is Meridian’s first project in Santa Fe, and we are very excited about this site and the opportunity,” said Meridian Chief Executive Officer, Mike Conn. “Northern New Mexico is a growing demographic, and we identified a need for affordable, outpatient healthcare services in Santa Fe. Meridian’s mission is to provide greater access to care at a more affordable cost, and we look forward to building this facility for the community of Santa Fe. The City of Santa Fe has been fantastic to work with and has helped us navigate the entitlements and permitting process to make this project successful. They have been first-class at all levels of land use, permitting, and engineering. In addition, our trusted partners include Skiles Group as the general contractor, Page Southerland Page, Inc. architects, Tierra West civil engineers and surveyors, and Orion Enterprises as our entitlement consultant.”

“The project will consist of a 95,000-square-foot, three-story building with approximately 520 parking stalls. The overall investment in this site exceeds $100 million and will bring significant jobs and tax revenue to the City of Santa Fe. The façade will include a multi-color scheme, with decorative main entry towers, a sky bridge, one linear accelerator vault with room for future expansion, and a prefabricated paneling system to create depth and articulation to the building elevations. The interior of the building will house up to 50 infusion bays, a lab, and advanced imaging with interventional radiology. The outpatient facility is planned to include primary care, general surgery, cardiology, pulmonary, medical oncology, infusion, radiation oncology, imaging, lab, pharmacy, breast surgery, orthopedics, physical therapy, urology, gastroenterology, neurology, rheumatology, neurosurgery, and gynecologic oncology,” said Conn.

Conn added, “Meridian has partnered with a phenomenal medical group, Nexus Health, to make this project happen. Dr. Scott Herbert was a pleasure to work with and an excellent partner through a complicated and challenging transaction that involved a double escrow and sensitive interactions with local hospital systems.” A public REIT provided the majority of capital along with substantial physician investment to aid with the recruitment and retention of doctors.”

“We are so pleased to bring this incredible facility to the community of Santa Fe,” said Dr. Scott Herbert, Practice President, Nexus Health. “Nexus Health is establishing itself as the outpatient center of choice for this community. We pride ourselves on providing quick access to care and an alternative to the traditional corporate hospital model for care delivery. Why go to a hospital for care unless you have to?”

Dr. Herbert continues, “The Nexus Health facility on Beckner Road is scheduled to open in July 2024, and we look forward to serving Northern New Mexico. It truly took a team approach to get this project over the line. I want to thank the City of Santa Fe, all our joint venture partners, all of the participating providers and staff, and Meridian for bringing our vision for this tremendous facility to fruition. We hope this will be model for future multi-specialty healthcare facilities for years to come.”

There will be a groundbreaking ceremony in early May, in which the community will be invited to participate. Nexus Health, Meridian, and various city officials will be in attendance to talk about the project and what it means for the City of Santa Fe, Northern New Mexico and the surrounding Las Solares master plan.

Meridian is still actively looking to partner with healthcare providers and large physician groups for more real estate opportunities throughout California, the Pacific Northwest, Mountain States, the Southwest and Texas.

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MODESTO, Calif.-Real estate development firm Meridian, based in San Ramon, Calif, has completed the sale of a medical complex the company formerly owned at 1328 Coffee Road, located in the northeastern side of this Central Valley city.

Meridian first acquired the vacant lot on Coffee Road in April 2018, and immediately set about to develop a healthcare facility on the 39,204-square-foot piece of land. Meridian completed buildout of the dialysis clinic, which sits just down the street from Sutter’s Memorial Medical Center, in May 2019.

During construction of the dialysis center, Meridian meticulously planned a rezoning of the property, which at the time wasn’t zoned for medical usage. By planning for a dialysis center, Meridian was able to work around the proscription, the firm said. And because the site was smaller than others developed by Meridian, the company opted to utilize a driveway that was shared with the neighboring parcel of land. When completed, the dialysis center had space for 38 parking spaces.

The project architect for the dialysis center was Harriman Kinyon Architects of Walnut Creek, California. H2 Builders of Napa served as general contractor, assisted by civil engineer Kier & Wright of Livermore.

“Modesto is seeing heightened demand for medical facilities due to rapid growth in the area,” Mike Conn, Meridian’s executive vice president, said in a statement. “We are very pleased that our client finds value in our ability to unlock difficult off-market sites or assemblages for new development in our very land-constrained market.

“This particular site is much tighter and narrower than most developments we’ve done for a building of this size,” Conn added regarding the sale. “We had to structure a deal with the neighbor for a shared driveway to functionally lay out the building and site. Our ability to think outside the box and get creative with design ultimately led to the success of this building.”

Meridian sold the 11,250-square-foot dialysis center for $6.1 million. The identity of the buyer has not been disclosed, but the transaction with the buyer was a “Section 1031 Exchange” so that the buyer could ultimately diversify its portfolio into healthcare, Meridian announced. In real estate, a 1031 exchange is a swap of one investment property for another that allows capital gains taxes to be deferred. To learn more, search online for “1031 exchange real estate“. Meridian was represented in the aforementioned transaction by Chris Sheldon of Cushman & Wakefield of San Francisco.

Even though Meridian has divested of the dialysis property, Conn maintains that the mission of kidney health remains important.

“Kidney failure, also known as end-stage renal disease (ESRD), is a fatal condition unless the patient undergoes dialysis, in which a machine filters toxins and fluids from the blood outside the body, or unless they receive a kidney transplant,” Conn said. “In-center hemodialysis patients are treated approximately four hours a day, three times a week, for the remainder of their lives.

“There is a tremendous need to bring these types of services into the communities where patients live, and we are thrilled that we were able to deliver this new, leading-edge facility to the Modesto community.”

Meridian also recently sold another 13,600-square-foot medical building in Stockton, California. Conn said that Meridian is pursuing acquisitions and developments in the rest of California as well as the Southwest and Pacific Northwest.

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PASADENA, Calif.—Real estate developer Meridian, which owns several medical office spaces, has completed the sale of the Cotton Medical Center to Healthcare Realty Trust. The medical center is located at 50 Bellefontaine St. and 50 Alessandro Pl., adjacent to Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena.

The Cotton Medical Center consists of two multi-tenant office buildings comprising 115,000 square feet of medical use space. The price was not disclosed, but the Healthcare Realty Trust has previously focused on managing and developing similar medical facilities around the country.

Meridian first acquired the Pasadena property in early 2016, at which time the buildings were 71 percent occupied. Since the 2016 purchase, Meridian has undertaken $10 million of renovations to both the interior and exterior of the buildings, bringing up the occupancy rate to 80 percent in the process.

“This was Meridian’s largest acquisition at the time and provided an opportunity to acquire a fee-simple interest in a fundamentally strong market in Southern California,” said Meridian Vice President of Acquisitions R.J. Sommerdyke. “In addition to Cotton Medical Center’s proximity to the hospital, access to LA Metro’s Fillmore Station and convenient access to the 110, 210 and 134 freeways were also influencing factors in the acquisition.”

According to Heidi Duffy, Meridian asset manager, the scope of renovation work included installing new wayfinding signage throughout the buildings, updating common areas, elevator modernization, installing fire sprinklers, Title 24 and ADA upgrades, automated parking equipment, new café, electric vehicle charging stations, installing high-efficiency HVAC, and updating lighting systems throughout.

“We wanted to make sure we capitalized on this opportunity by not only modernizing the buildings, but also improving the patient experience, which we definitely accomplished,” Duffy said.

CBRE’s Los Angeles office facilitated the leasing efforts at the property itself. Both buyer and seller self-represented in what was described as a direct-sale transaction.

“This asset purchase, reposition and lease-up is a prime example of our core business,” added Sommerdyke. “Improving the patient experience and the working environment and efficiencies for healthcare providers is our primary mission.”

Sommerdyke added that Meridian is developing or redeveloping 500,000 square feet at present throughout the Pacific region, and is also looking at more such developments in the Southwest and Pacific Northwest as well.

“We really have an appetite for land and buildings where we can bring our expertise to bear and create value,” he said. “Meridian has a healthy pipeline with multiple projects currently in escrow and several completed projects listed for sale in our healthcare business platform.”

Meridian was founded in 1999 in San Ramon, California. The firm specializes in healthcare real estate in top markets, providing services such as site evaluation and planning, construction and management. The firm has two offices in California as well as others in Seattle, Phoenix and Dallas.

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