Sabra Healthcare REIT Inc. and Ensign Group Inc. are buying more properties.
Irvine-based Sabra said at the end of April that it bought Park Place in Fort Wayne, Ind., for $23.8 million. Sabra, which invests in a variety of healthcare real estate, added that it funded an additional $1.7 million preferred equity investment to complete a memory care facility in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Park Place, which opened in 2011, has 140 units and is fully occupied.
The campus is operated by Carmel, Ind.-based Leo Brown Group LLC. Sabra said it’s pursuing development opportunities with Leo Brown, as well as leasing back Park Place to Leo Brown.
Sabra has been working to make a deal with Leo Brown “for some time … they are a fantastic team to work with,” Chief Executive Richard Matros said in a news release.
He added that Sabra is hoping to announce a senior housing development project with the company.
Sabra has been working in recent years to diversify its portfolio away from dependence on Kennett Square, Pa.-based Genesis HealthCare LLC, the owner of its former parent, Sun Healthcare Group Inc. Sabra spun out of Sun, which was then based in Irvine, in 2010.
Meanwhile, Mission Viejo-based Ensign said May 2 that it bought a nursing home in Arizona, its second such buy this year.
Ensign acquired Casas Adobes Post-Acute Rehabilitation Center in Tucson for an undisclosed price.
The facility has 230 beds. The company said in a news release that Casas Adobes’ real estate wouldn’t be included in its previously announced plan to separate its real estate business from its healthcare operations.
Casas Adobes gives Ensign more than 120 healthcare facilities, along with eight hospice companies, 10 home health agencies, and 11 urgent care clinics in California and 10 other states, according to Ensign.
Ensign continues to seek additional real estate buys “or to lease both well-performing and struggling skilled nursing, assisted living and other healthcare-related businesses across the United States,” Chief Executive Christopher Christensen said.
Endologix Updates HQ Progress
Irvine-based Endologix Inc. expects to occupy its new corporate headquarters in the second half of this year, company officials said on a late April call with analysts and investors. The company makes devices to treat aortic abdominal aneurysms.
Chief Financial Officer Shelley Thunen mentioned Endologix’ new building as part of a presentation on the device maker’s cash, cash equivalents, and investments on its balance sheet.
She said “capital expenditures for our new facility,” along with continued inventory investments to support revenue growth, were the principal cash uses during the first quarter.
Endologix’ cash, cash equivalents and investments totaled $119.6 million, down 5% from 2013’s first quarter.
The company said last year in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it signed a 15-year lease agreement for a pair of buildings at 2 Musick Honor Farm Road and 35 Hammond in the Irvine Spectrum. Endologix will initially pay roughly $1.9 million a year in base rent.
It said in the filing that the buildings have 129,000 combined square feet and will replace its current facilities at 11 Studebaker and 1 Hughes.
“We have the high-class problem of continued significant growth,” Todd Abraham, Endologix’ vice president of operations, said in a Business Journal interview last year.
“We project that we will run out of capacity if we didn’t make a move—we want to make sure we stay ahead of that growth curve,” Abraham said.
Musick and Hammond required what he called “pretty significant” renovations, including the building of laboratories, clean rooms and warehouse space.
“It’s pretty much a complete do-over internally in each building to get them to meet all of our specific needs.”
Bits & Pieces
Alphaeon Corp. of Newport Beach said it introduced Alphaeon Credit, which will give patients the opportunity to finance what the company calls “lifestyle medicine procedures.” Alphaeon works with board-certified physicians to develop and market medical procedures and technologies that patients pay for on a cash basis, rather than through insurance. … Newport Beach-based PhageTech LLC and Rancho Santa Margarita-based Willowglade Technologies Corp. are two of the 14 companies selected to make pitches at a technology investor forum presented by Aliso Viejo-based technology booster group Octane. PhageTech is developing a sensor to be used for in-vitro diagnostic testing; Willowglade is developing information technology for cancer patients, their caregivers, family and friends. The forum takes place May 22 at the Hotel Irvine.
