More medical space is coming to central Orange County.
Enterprise Commercial Development Inc. of Lake Forest has paid $13 million for 4.2 acres of land zoned for medical office space in the Irvine Spectrum.
The developer plans a three-story, 67,000-square-foot medical condominium complex on the land, according to Jon Marchiorlatti, a broker with CB Richard Ellis Inc.
Marchiorlatti and colleagues Chris Bates and David Bolt represented Enterprise in the land buy.
Construction could start in October or November. Enterprise plans to sell offices in the building to dentists, psychologists and other doctors.
Orange County has a tight medical office market.
“There is a lack of product here,” Marchiorlatti said. “We’re trying to fill it.”
Demand is such that Enterprise was willing to pay $3 million an acre for the land,on par with prices for land for new homes in Irvine.
Enterprise bought the land from The Irvine Company.
The developer likely is looking to recoup its investment by selling, rather than renting, the offices to doctors.
In an interview last month, Kevin McNeil, a broker with Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Brokerage Co.’s Newport Beach office, said medical office vacancy rates are running around 1%.
When a building next to a hospital comes up for sale, it’s snatched up right away, he said.
McNeil and colleague Matthew Kipp handled the May sale of Warner Village Medical, a 33,070-square-foot medical building near Fountain Valley Regional Hospital Medical Center.
Warner International Network LLC, a private investment group, paid $7.3 million for the 29-year-old Warner Village, which is full.
Enterprise’s project is the latest in a series of medical real estate deals in the past year or so.
Irvine-based Boureston Development Inc. paid $3.7 million in February to Christian Credit Union for a two-story, 18,468-square-foot building on Lambert Road in Brea. The company is converting the former bank branch for medical use.
A partnership including George Okida paid $7.4 million to Olive Crest Treatment Centers for a 55,187-square-foot office building on East Fourth Street in Santa Ana. Those owners are planning to renovate the building and lease it to St. Joseph Hospital.
In January, Greenlaw Partners LLC, a Newport Beach real estate investor, shelled out $12.3 million to Arizona Medical Center LLC for a 61,640-square-foot medical building in Yorba Linda.
Hospitals also have got in on the action.
Newport Healthcare Center LLC, a unit of Newport Beach’s Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, bought the Newport Technology Center for an undisclosed price from Newport Superior Group LLC back in February.
Hoag is planning several uses for the Newport Technology Center, including medical offices. The Newport Technology Center is made up of four office buildings and a parking structure, but one of the buildings will be razed for additional parking.
