Yale-New Haven Children”™s Hospital has opened a new pediatric specialty center in Norwalk, with the resultant move spurring a mini medical-services real estate boom.
The new center is in one of two buildings at Belden Square, which was formerly the headquarters of Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd.
Following the trend of converting office and retail buildings to medical spaces, it should be easy to attract more medical tenants to the buildings now that the center has moved in, said Kathleen Fazio, Cushman & Wakefield Inc.”™s real estate director of health care practice. Currently there are two tenants looking to lease full floors with one having submitted a letter of intent.
“Certainly over the last 10 years, we”™ve seen hospitals expanding to provide services into the communities that surround them,” said Felix Charney, CEO of Summit Development L.L.C., in Southport, who led the project. “I think it”™s a wonderful amenity to bring very high”“quality pediatric health care to Norwalk and the surrounding community.”
This is the fourth hospital expansion Summit has positioned medical real estate around, but the first in Fairfield County and the first with Yale-New Haven Children”™s Hospital.
Similarly this is Yale-New Haven Children”™s Hospital fifth expansion and the first specialty center in Fairfield County. The hospital has a campus at the Bridgeport Hospital, which is an affiliate of Yale-New Haven Health System along with Greenwich Hospital.
“We think it”™s a terrific location,” said Cynthia Sparer, executive director of Yale-New Haven Children”™s Hospital. “We look forward to having a very long future where we are. I think it”™s something we, once we saw it and realized what we could do there, moved quickly. The whole project was developed in six months.”
The building had ample parking spaces, was already handicap accessible and was just off of Interstate 95.
Fairfield County has one of the largest populations of children without a children”™s hospital, Sparer said, which prompted the hospital to expand into the area. Additionally, when a child is in a vulnerable state, many parents want all their visits to stay within Yale-New Haven Children”™s Hospital”™s network, but sometimes that can result in long car rides. To better serve patients and their families, the hospital has built specialty centers for checkups, early diagnostic visits and other services. There will be 13 specialty services at the Norwalk center.
At its other expansions, Sparer said she”™s seen similar real estate developments, where medical services have moved to their location.
The Long Wharf specialty center in New Haven opened two years ago and the building has seen many smaller businesses move in such as a pediatric dental practice, behavioral services and adult specialty centers.
Sparer said she expects the same will happen at Belden Square. There are two other floors to fill in Yale New Haven Children”™s Hospital”™s building and a smaller building to fill also.
Britain-based Virgin Atlantic left the building in 2005 when it decided to downsize its U.S. headquarters and lease less space at another site in Norwalk.
“Were very excited to be there,” Sparer said. “It will work out extremely well. We”™re very confident about that.”
