It isn’t easy to find the entrance to Eden Fertility Management’s second OC office along Birch Street in Newport Beach.
Newport Heights Medical Campus is next to a city golf course and is one of the newer buildings on the block. The Business Journal this month reported LaSalle Investment Management, part of Chicago-based JLL, paid $50.5 million for the 2-year-old, two-building, 60,000-square-foot property.
At $840 per square foot, it’s the highest price paid for a medical office building of its size in the city in the last 10 years, rivaled locally only by acquisitions such as waterfront hotels, according to CoStar Group Inc. data.
Shouldn’t be too hard to find the place, or get in.
But some difficulty is stock-in-trade for Eden.
Stork Market
Corporately, Eden is not a medical entity.
It works with in vitro fertilization practices and providers to offer clinical, administration and business development services under a high-end brand. Healthcare is offered by medical professionals.
It’s similar to dental service organizations such as Smile Brands or Pacific Dental Services, each in Irvine, for that industry. Eden’s “management services organization” pitch to physicians and investors is scale: expanding a business while controlling costs.
The Newport Beach-based MSO, Eden Fertility Centers Development, has opened two of its own sites—a Fullerton center, largely for clinical consultation, in July; and Newport’s larger-scale location, which officially bowed last week.
Angela Hartshorn, regional clinical administrator, said Eden plans to build its own or buy and operate other locations, to expand via a “spoke-and-wheel” model: a central hub like Newport has an IVF lab, surgery center and physician practice; satellite offices such as Fullerton let patients come for checkups and monitoring near their homes.
It wants to grow nationwide.
Chief Executive Timothy “T.J.” McGinley was previously a regional executive with Dallas-based Cirrus Health, as it was opening luxe ambulatory surgical care centers—“travertine marble, black granite, wood cabinetry and rich leather furnishings” read one press release—including in Laguna Hills, Newport Beach, Orange, Beverly Hills, and Pasadena, along with the Bay Area and in five other states.
McGinley has worked with other companies involved in management services applied to various kinds of healthcare providers including Hospital Developers LLC locally and OR Efficiencies LLC in Naples, Fla., led by ex-Johnson & Johnson healthcare management consulting exec V. Gerard “Jerry” Ippolito.
The Key
There are several entrances to Eden, not all of which are marked.
A few, in fact, are downright nondescript.
One door was locked—on purpose.
Hartshorn later told the Business Journal it was a VIP lounge entrance for “select clientele” seeking a low-key, “concierge” experience.
That’s the second part of the company’s unique selling proposition: yes, it can be hard to visit a fertility clinic—but once you get here, much, if not all, can be well.
Opaque Oasis
Once inside the building and up the squared-off, modern staircase is Eden’s oasis: suite 200.
This door was unlocked and the waiting room—a foyer freighted with some uncertainty by its very name—includes a room-within-a-room, with a frosted glass door and windows.
“Some clients come with children,” Hartshorn said, gesturing to the room, then gliding down the hall under ambient lighting—no fluorescence and soothing. “We try to create a calm atmosphere.”
Inner sanctums include rooms for the various elements of IVF for men, women and couples, as well as offices, taking up most of the second floor.
The new location also has recovery rooms for postoperative rest and recuperation and several security features, Chief Operating Officer Michael Ruszczynski, a former project manager at Pfizer Inc., said during the tour.
Special Space
Eden signed for 19,000 square feet of space a year ago on undisclosed terms.
Area leasing of medical office buildings run a shade under $4 a square foot per month, CoStar said.
One-sixth of Eden’s Newport space is the IVF lab. Suite floors are wood, the color palette soft blues and beige.
The level of service it offers is “rare,” according Hartshorn. “I’ve worked in very large centers before this” and Eden is one of a kind, she added.
Eden encourages full families to be involved in the process, Ruszczynski said.
“It is a very special moment.”
Pro Ops
Fertility is hot right now: people often start families later than previous generations and changes in medical care and how it’s delivered have made more kinds of technology and services available.
The Newport Beach clinic includes several million dollars of software, furnishings, accouterments and equipment.
Hartshorn said staff and clients tend to bond a bit over the intimate nature of the work.
“You get pictures of the kids, thank you notes, flowers,” she said. “You get Christmas cards for life.”
The office can work with 1,500 patients annually, including clients from countries where fertility care isn’t available or of the same quality.
Eden job postings last week included a marketing manager for Newport Beach and an IVF coordinator for Fullerton that sought fluency in Mandarin.
Ruszczynski said staffers are comfortable in many languages including Spanish, Greek, Russian, Korean, Farsi and Chaldean.
