By Scott Nishimura snishimura@bizpress.net
Baylor All Saints Medical Center has sold its former Southwest Fort Worth hospital to Rainier Realty Investments, which will redevelop it for mixed-use, Rainer said Thursday.
The property, less than 10 miles from downtown and with quick access to the recently opened Chisholm Trail Parkway, is at 7100 Oakmont Blvd. in the middle of an affluent, fast-growing area. It’s the latest significant real estate movement in the path of the new highway.
“This site is one of very few campus opportunities in the region offering such visibility and access within a major market,” Rob Jones, a Rainer principal, said. “The submarket is currently underserved for quality retail, restaurant and office spaces, and we believe there are exceptional opportunities for this site.”
Rainer and Baylor did not disclose terms. Baylor Health Care System closed the hospital in 2012 because it was underused and losing money, according to system officials.
The 18-acre property includes a two-story, 120,000-square-foot building, pad sites, and ground leases under two medical office buildings. Another entity owns the medical office buildings.
Rainier said it intends to redevelop the site for mixed use, including restaurant/retail frontage and other office, medical and specialty uses.
Jones said the firm wants to work with the existing hospital building on the property.
“It’s a nice looking building,” recently updated by Baylor, “and we’d like to work with it,” he said in an interview.
A CBRE team led by Bob Scully, senior vice president, and Nanci Johnson-Plump, vice president, will lead Rainer’s marketing. Scully represented Baylor in the sale.
Scully, in an interview, stressed the property offers significant flexibility. Tenants in the main buiilding could include office, medical office, and data centers, he said.
“We can go in multiple directions,” he said. “It’s got medical improvements, so we can go in that direction. And the building can easily be modified for data centers or office.”
As far as tenant sizes, “we can work with tenants as small as 10,000 square feet,” he said, or up to 120,000 square feet.
The new highway access was a critical piece in the appeal of the property, Scully said.
“The highway access makes all the difference in the world,” he said. “It’s a thoroughfare that hadn’t existed. It’s become the main artery between Southwest Fort Worth and downtown.”
Two to four pad sites fronting Oakmont, including a 1.5-acre site at Oakmont and the Chisholm Trail, are available. Banks and restaurants are the among the potential tenants, Scully said.
Rainier put the property under contract in November 2013, Jones and Scully confirmed. A Baylor senior executive confirmed to The Business Press early last year Baylor had the site under contract, but declined to identify the potential buyer.
Inwood Bank provided the financing for the acquisition, and Jones said Rainier has the financing it needs for the redevelopment.
Rainier is a real estate lender, owner and developer in the DFW area. Founded by Tim Nichols and Ken Dunn in 2003, Rainer said it’s involved in more than 100 commercial real estate projects in Texas and the Southwest.
Those include what Rainer said is a 22-acre project in Flower Mound similar to the planned Baylor All Saints redevelopment. That project includes medical, retail and hotel uses.