Woodland Hills-based Voit Cos. has acquired the 22-acre Friendly Hills Medical Group site in La Habra with plans to resell a relatively new building there and redevelop the rest.
Terms of the deal for the 210,000 square feet of medical and office space at the corner of Lambert Road and Idaho Street were not disclosed.
Proceeds of the sale are set to go toward paying Friendly Hills’ creditors. Friendly Hills Medical Group, along with its parent company, Anaheim-based KPC Medical Management Inc., filed for bankruptcy in December.
The property includes a 140,000-square-foot, single-story hospital, a 50,000-square-foot office building, twin 20,000-square-foot medical office buildings and a 3,500-square-foot facility. All of the properties are vacant except for the smallest building, which is occupied by a medical imaging company.
Also, the hospital still contains reams of KPC’s medical records, which, as part of the sale agreement, will be removed from the premises within 60 days.
Immediate plans have Jeff Chiate of Cushman & Wakefield Inc.’s Irvine office,who with Peter Sowa of that office represented Voit in the deal,marketing a 50,000-square-foot office building on four acres at the northeast corner of the property. Voit is asking $8 million for the building.
According to a Voit spokesman, early interest has come from schools due to the building’s large auditorium, cafeteria and multimedia area.
“We’re going to sell it first thing,” said David Allison, who, along with Brian Malliet, head up Voit’s project development team. “It’s a nice building, only built six or seven years ago.”
The Voit team is mulling three possibilities for the remaining 18 acres.
Depending on the attractiveness of the offers, Voit either could rehab the existing hospital into an assisted living facility or raze the buildings and develop a retail center or apartment complex. The remaining, untouched land most likely will be developed as residential neighborhoods, according to Malliet.
Whatever the use of the land, Voit would like to break ground in early 2002 and have construction done by next summer. But development will proceed at the speed of the permitting process, which could last nine months.
For now, the Voit team continues to receive strong interest for all three possible uses.
“The offers have been attractive from all three categories,” Allison said. “We’re just trying to find and maximize the best possible use for the property. We’re going to let the market tell us what to use it for.”
David Hasbrouck of Cushman & Wakefield’s Los Angeles office and Kevin Leonard and Dan Freeman of Orange-based Health West Realty Advisors represented the seller in the La Habra deal. n
