Baptist Health Under Contract To Buy Coral Gables Dev Site

Baptist Health is under contract to pay $41.5 million for the development site of the Collection Residences in Coral Gables — a property at the center of contentious litigation between developers Masoud Shojaee and Ugo Colombo, court documents reveal.

The Baptist deal could close within two months.

Shojaee and Colombo had planned to jointly develop the Collection Residences, a mixed-use project with 128 condos and retail space at the 2.8-acre site at 250 Bird Road, 4101 Salzedo Street and 4112 Aurora Street before their partnership ended in dispute nearly three years ago.

Shojaee and Colombo, through their firms, jointly owned Coral Gables Luxury Holdings LLC, which planned to develop the project across the street from The Collection. Following a major falling out in November 2015, Shojaee and Colombo pulled out of their joint venture.

In January 2016, Shojaee’s Shoma Coral Gables filed suit against Colombo’s Gables Investment Holdings LLC; Colombo, individually; and The Collection LLC, Colombo’s Coral Gables luxury car dealership, alleging breach of contract, among other counts. Shojaee’s company alleged that Colombo and his companies breached their operating agreement. Earlier this month, the court dismissed Colombo as a defendant in the case.

The suit seeks between $4 million and $5 million in damages, said Shoma’s attorney Andrew Hall, founding partner of Hall, Lamb, Hall & Leto. A civil jury trial set to begin this week was delayed. Last week, Colombo’s firm filed a motion to dismiss the case, citing a contract with Baptist Health to purchase the development site.

“The company is essentially in liquidation mode with an executed contract of sale of its only asset — the property,” the motion states. “If following closing on the contract of sale to Baptist Hospital, [Shoma] receives back every dollar it invested, it will have no actual damage and its claims in this case will be entirely mooted.”

Hall said Shoma objects to dismissing the case. Robert Burlington, a partner in Coffee Burlington, who represents Colombo and his companies, declined to comment. Kathleen Moorman, vice president of Baptist Health Enterprises Real Estate and Development, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Baptist Health has been expanding throughout South Florida in recent years. It recently opened a four-story, 60,000-square-foot outpatient facility at Crescent Heights’ mixed-use development at 709 Alton Road in Miami Beach.

The 2016 suit tied to the Coral Gables site alleged that after Shoma refused to give in to Colombo’s demands, Colombo sabotaged the project, “causing substantial damages to Shoma.” Colombo responded to the lawsuit at the time, calling it “a frivolous lawsuit filed by a peculiar fellow.”

“There’s no question that there is an awful lot of money lost to engage in the development that shouldn’t have been lost,” Hall said, citing expenses including architectural engineering plans, sales office construction and operations. “Those millions of dollars were wasted and its seems to me that [Colombo’s CMC Group] needs to basically write the check because they did something they had no right to do, and make us whole.”

Colombo and Shojaee paid $27 million for the property in 2013, plus a $1 million bonus upon execution of a sale or lease of underground parking spaces to the Collection, and 10 percent of the gross rental income from any lease or the sales price for the purchase of any underground parking, according to the suit.

If the lawsuit goes to trial, Colombo’s firm’s motion to dismiss states that if Shoma proves a breach of contract and a jury awards its claimed out-of-pocket damage, Shoma cannot also receive anything from the closing on the sale of the property because it cannot have a double recovery.

But Hall said that even if the Baptist deal goes forward, the $4 million to $5 million is still lost. “It’s money we didn’t need to spend,” he said, ”and we are going to make them pay us back for that.”

Source: The Real Deal

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State Signs Off On Jacksonville Trauma Center

The Florida Department of Health on Friday issued a final order rejecting a challenge to a new trauma center at Memorial Hospital in Jacksonville.

The department adopted recommendations by Administrative Law Judge Robert Cohen, who ruled against UF Health Jacksonville, which has long operated a trauma center and filed the challenge.

The Department of Health last year gave what is known as “provisional” approval for Memorial to open a trauma center.

UF Health Jacksonville challenged the approval on a series of grounds, including whether a “slot” was available in the state trauma system to open another trauma facility in Northeast Florida.

But Cohen, in issuing his recommended order June 13, concluded that “Memorial met its burden of establishing that its trauma center application met the applicable standards” and rejected UF Health Jacksonville’s argument that the department improperly gave approval to the Memorial trauma center without an available slot.

Under administrative law, Cohen’s ruling had to go back to the Department of Health for final action.

The department’s order Friday did not expound on the details of Cohen’s recommendation.

The case was one of numerous legal battles in the hospital industry in recent years about whether trauma centers should be allowed to open.

Lawmakers passed a measure this year aimed at resolving most of the disputes, but the Memorial case continued.

Source: WLRN

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Hallandale Beach May Get 8-Story Medical Building

Hallandale Beach could get a new, eight-story medical office tower — and homes will be demolished to make way for it.

The plan calls for a nearly 91,000-square-foot building at 400 SE Ninth St., with medical offices and a four-story parking garage.

Broward County property records show the developer, Care LG 2016 Holdings LLC, bought 11 parcels along Southeast Ninth Street and Ninth Court in September for $6.45 million to make way for the new tower. Homes on the site now include a single-family house, a duplex, a triplex, and a two-story, nine-unit apartment building, according to city staff.

Jose Saye, spokesman for Synalovski Romanik Saye LLC, an architecture and planning firm, said the project still needs final approvals by city staff. Demolition permits would be considered after that, he said, and construction could begin in September.

The public can hear about the proposal at a meeting set for 6 p.m. July 19 at the Hallandale Beach Cultural Center, 410 SE Third St. The meeting was mandated by City Hall as part of the approval process.

The project would include an urgent care center and an imaging diagnostic facility on the ground floor. The top three floors would be office space for physicians and therapeutic practitioners.

Source: SunSentinel

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Orlando Health To Buy 25 Acres For Future Expansion

Orlando Health has entered into a contract with EHOF Acquisitions II LLC to buy 25 acres in Osceola County.

The $3.8 billion nonprofit health care provider expects to close on the property at 8011 Osceola Polk Line Road in Davenport by early 2019. The organization has not yet announced its purpose for the site. Master development and infrastructure-related activities for the site are expected to begin this fall.

“This superior site, just south of Central Florida’s bustling tourist corridor and southeast of the fast-growing Four Corners area, will make possible new health care options for the thousands of residents, employees and visitors in the region and, we expect, expanded future employment opportunities,” Matt Taylor, the vice president of asset strategy for Orlando Health, said in a prepared statement.

The property will be part of a 108-acre mixed-use development called Reunion Village. That project, owned by Encore Capital Management, will feature three restaurants, a multi-tenant retail facility and 300 homes. Currently, there are leasing opportunities at the Davenport location through LandQwest Commercial Real Estate.

In addition, Orlando Health reportedly wants to buy a 51-acre cow pasture so it can bring more health care services to Apopka — and gain some strength in the northwest Orange County community. The hospital system reportedly has the property at 5401 Effie Drive near State Road 429 and West Kelly Park Road under contract, industry experts told Orlando Business Journal. Orlando Health didn’t respond to requests for comment, but it has been scooping up several medical office spaces and other properties in Central Florida this year.

Orlando Health also recently bought property in downtown Orlando and in Oviedo:

It bought a two-story, 72,000-square-foot building from Oviedo Medical Properties LLC on May 25 which it will use as medical office space.
The 121 W. Copeland Drive property in downtown Orlando was bought June 18 for $833,500. The city of Orlando and Orlando Utilities Commission previously owned the land and leased it to Orlando Health.

Meanwhile, Orlando Health is working on several projects, including a $400 million, 30-acre medical complex in Lake Mary and a freestanding emergency room near the Tupperware Brands Corp. (NYSE: TUP) headquarters on the Orange-Osceola counties border.

“We are in the midst of a health care arms race,” American College of Healthcare Architects President and local industry expert Bill Hercules previously told OBJ, referencing hospital systems’ scramble for land and/or medical properties.

Orlando Health owns nine Central Florida hospitals, including Orlando Regional Medical Center, Dr. P. Phillips Hospital, South Seminole Hospital, Health Central Hospital, the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children, Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Babies, South Lake Hospital and St. Cloud Regional Medical Center. It also owns 11 urgent care centers in the region, as well as several cancer centers, freestanding ERs and more. It is one of the region’s largest employers, with 23,000 workers.

Source: OBJ

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Cleveland Clinic Readies New $53 Million Coral Springs Family Health Center

With the countdown to opening at less than four days, workers streamed in and out of Cleveland Clinic Florida’s newest South Florida facility on Thursday installing and testing the final pieces of high-tech equipment.

On July 16, the clinic is scheduled to open its three-story, 73,000-square-foot Coral Springs Family Health Center at the southeast corner of North University Drive and the Sawgrass Expressway.

Inside, most of the pieces were in place and ready for use: large, naturally lit waiting rooms with carefully curated art on the wall — “shown to be beneficial for healing,” said Arlene Allen-Mitchell, the clinic’s director of communications and media.

Built for about $33 million and equipped for another $20 million, the facility is not a hospital or trauma center, but an ambulatory surgical center with 17 medical specialties and imaging and diagnostic services. It was developed through a joint venture between the clinic and Jupiter-based Rendina Healthcare Real Estate.

Services will include gastroenterology, orthopedic surgery, plastic and reconstructive surgery, podiatry, urology, sports health, hand surgery, gynecology and breast surgery.

Clinic patients will be referred for digital and 3D mammograms, CT scans, MRIs, ultrasounds, general X-rays and fluoroscope imaging.

The center also includes 40 exam rooms, 24 prep and recovery rooms, and four state-of-the-art operating rooms, with another two coming in the future.

The operating rooms are big — 300 square feet each, with ample empty space surrounding the operating table, anesthesiology equipment, various light and power sources and diagnostic equipment, and flat-screen monitors.

Juan Nogueras, the center’s medical director, said he has worked in smaller operating rooms “and this is much better.” He pointed out that a typical surgery involves numerous clinicians — an anesthesiologist, circulating nurse, scrub nurse, surgical team and additional equipment.

“In operations, it’s like an orchestra,” he said. “There’s a rhythm to it,” with specialized personnel carrying out vital tasks. “That’s why having space is important.”

Source: SunSentinel

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