- Presbyterian Healthcare Services and UnityPoint Health executives have agreed not to pursue a planned cross-market merger that would have created a system of nearly 50 hospitals. The nonprofit systems proposed the partnership in March; however, financial issues have led to the merger being abandoned.
- Walgreens plans to close 60 underperforming VillageMD clinics and exit five markets as part of an aggressive $1B cost-saving strategy as it looks to boost profitability in its health care business. The company posted weaker-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings and offered a soft profit outlook for 2024 amid falling demand for COVID-19 products.
- Healthcare Facilities Management magazine recently published a piece on how health systems are designing for more climate resiliency as the scope of billion-dollar disasters has risen from $6B in the 1980s to nearly $50B in the 2010s. There were 18 billion-dollar disasters in 2022 alone.
- A bill introduced in the Wisconsin legislature would pave the way for new crisis urgent care and observation centers to help address a lack of treatment options for people experiencing a mental health crisis. The bill would authorize the state Department of Health Services to create a framework for issuing certifications for new, 24/7 regional mental health facilities.
- A similar effort is underway in Maine, as State Rep. Laurel Libby, who has been a nurse in the state for 20 years, introduced a bill to increase the availability of mental health care facilities by repealing the CON requirement for those facilities.
- Lee Health in Fort Myers, FL is set to lease a new medical office building in nearby Cape Coral to be part of a hybrid complex which will also include residential apartments. The building, due to be completed in the fall of 2025, will cost an annual $3.2 million for Lee Health with a 20-year lease agreement.
- A joint venture between ECU Health and Acadia Healthcare broke ground on a state-of-the-art, 144-bed behavioral health hospital in Greenville.
- VHC Health purchased an approximately 145,000-square-foot office property in Alexandria, VA. VHC intends to convert the office property to an outpatient surgery center as well as medical office space. The purchase price was a more than $16M discount from what the seller paid for the building in 2018.
- An Alabama health care entity has applied to develop a more than $124M multi-specialty ambulatory surgery center in Jefferson County. The proposed surgery center will consist of 16 operating rooms, four procedure rooms, pre- and postoperative spaces, offices, workspaces for staff and shelled space for two future operating rooms.
- The president of Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital wrote a letter to the NY State Department of Health announcing her intention to close the hospital by next summer, a plan that would shut the doors to one of the last hospitals serving lower Manhattan.
For more information on real estate matters, please contact:
- Andrew Dick at adick@hallrender.com or (317) 977-1491;
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- Your primary Hall Render contact.
Special thanks to Gabriel Vaughn, undergraduate intern, for his assistance in the preparation of this article.
Hall Render blog posts and articles are intended for informational purposes only. For ethical reasons, Hall Render attorneys cannot give legal advice outside of an attorney-client relationship.
