Rona Siegel, Collins Enterprises, LLC

Demand for medical space within commercial buildings continues to grow with most hospitals across the country reaching maximum capacity and forcing doctors and patients to other locations. 

While office buildings attempt to accommodate the demand from medical tenants, landlords must put forth additional capital as physicians must follow very strict guidelines for approvals of procedures outside of hospitals. A majority of these guidelines are mandated by CMS (Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services; www.cms.gov) and Stark requirements (dictate restrictions on contracts with physicians and hospitals).

It is important to recognize that these new medical tenants will require additional demand not typically required from current office user including:

• Longer hours of operation (with some requesting to be “open” 24/7)

• Onsite generator (100% building back-up)

• Close proximity to front door from parking lot

• Additional parking (6-8 per 1,000 s/f)

• Larger sized and additional building directional signage (interior/exterior)

• Common area (hallway/restroom) renovation every 5 years (versus 8-10 years) due to higher volume of foot traffic

• Carve out of utility sub-meter with medical tenants demand for increased kwh usage.

There are opportunities for additional revenue with medical tenant requirement for storage of documents onsite (thru HIPAA, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act).

Currently, a few of the fastest growing medical tenants are:

• Bariatric Surgeons

• Fertility Clinics.

If you would like to attend the 2017 BOMA Medical conference in Denver, CO, please visit http://www.boma.org/events/calendar/Pages/2017-MOB-Conference.aspx.

For more information, visit us at www.soctboma.org or connect with us on:

• LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8177399/profile

• TWITTER at https://twitter.com/soctboma

• Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/soctboma/.

Rona Siegel is the president of BOMA Southern Connecticut, and is with Collins Enterprises, LLC, Old Greenwich, Conn.