Physician group to expand into New Rochelle
A long-vacant downtown office building in New Rochelle has been leased by Westmed Medical Group as the conversion of suburban office space to medical uses continues in the tristate region”™s stagnant commercial office market.
Headquartered in Purchase, the fast-growing multispecialty physician group practice will occupy 28,000 square feet of space at 171 Huguenot Ave. The facility, which Westmed plans to open between mid-February and March 2012, will be staffed by about 25 physicians. It will offer primary and specialty care and include Westmed”™s fourth urgent care center in Westchester County.
Dr. Simeon Schwartz, founding president of Westmed, has estimated the approximately 200-physician group will spend $4 million to $5 million for the expansion into New Rochelle.
It follows the fall opening of the 15-year-old physician”™s group”™s 84,000-square-foot polyclinic at the newly opened Ridge Hill mixed-use development in Yonkers. Westmed also has offices in White Plains, Harrison, Rye, Scarsdale, Bronxville and the Bronx. Westmed”™s four-doctor pediatric practice in the Bronx will relocate to New Rochelle.
Built in 1980 and expanded in 1986, the Huguenot Avenue building also includes a ground-level, 100,000-square-foot warehouse occupied by Bel-Aqua Pool Supply Inc. That wholesale business is owned by Westmed”™s New Rochelle landlord, Silwis L.L.C.
The landlord is converting office space vacated about eight years ago by Bally Inc., the Swiss-founded shoe company that had executive offices, a showroom and a retail store in the downtown building.
Frank Tomasulo, senior vice president at CB Richard Ellis in Stamford, Conn., represented the tenant in the deal. His office colleague, CBRE Vice President Budd Wiesenberg, was lead broker for the landlord, teaming with CBRE”™s William V. Cuddy Jr., executive vice president in Stamford.
“We”™ve been seeing this all over the region,” Wiesenberg said of the conversion of traditional office space to state-of-the-art medical facilities. “Right now, with the limited demand for the business sector, it”™s one way landlords can lease their property and achieve good rents.”
Wiesenberg said asking rents for medical offices in the Westchester market typically are $4 to $5 higher than average asking prices for traditional office space. Build-outs of medical space are “much more expensive,” he noted. “The landlord tries to recoup some of that” from tenants.
“And medical users don”™t like to move once they”™re there,” the broker said, making them attractive tenants for landlords.
Carcaterra cited as ”˜top young performer”™
Commercial broker Brian Carcaterra, a former three-time All-American lacrosse goalie at Johns Hopkins University, recently was named to another all-America team. Real Estate Forum, a national trade magazine, chose him for its Forty Under Forty roster of the nation”™s top young performers in the commercial real estate industry for 2011.
Carcaterra, 33, is a principal at Newmark Knight Frank”™s Greenwich, Conn., office. He was selected from among nearly 300 nominees for the honor.
The magazine cited his more than 450,000 square feet of leasing since March 2009 at The Exchange, the 14-building office-park portfolio of Normandy Real Estate Partners on the Platinum Mile corridor in White Plains and Harrison. He also closed more than 50 deals totaling 350,000 square feet for One Communications, the Massachusetts-based commercial telecommunications company acquired in April by EarthLink Inc.
Six tenants signs deals with Mack-Cali
Mack-Cali Realty Corp. in the third quarter closed lease deals with six corporate tenants at its Westchester County office parks.
Xand Corp., a provider of data center infrastructure and business continuity services, signed lease renewals totaling 89,710 square feet of space at Mid-Westchester Executive Park in Hawthorne. The company renewed for 46,078 square feet of office-flex space at 11 Skyline Drive, where it leases the entire building, and for 43,632 square feet at 17 Skyline Drive, occupying half of the fully leased office building. New Jersey-based Mack-Cali was represented in-house by senior leasing director, Carol McGuire.
Nextel of New York Inc., the wireless and wire-line communications services company, signed two lease transactions totaling 30,407 square feet at 565 Taxter Road in Taxter Corporate Park in Elmsford. Nextel was represented by Bradford C. Fenlon of CBÂ Richard Ellis Inc. Mack-Cali was represented by senior leasing director, Ivan Abry.
Also in Taxter Corporate Park, Schott Corp., a group of glass manufacturers and developers, signed a 16,915-square-foot lease renewal at 555 Taxter Road. The tenant was represented by Maureen O”™Boyle and Gerard E. Lees of Cushman & Wakefield of Connecticut Inc. Mack-Cali was represented in-house by Louis Amalfitano.
At South Westchester Executive Park in Yonkers, Montefiore Medical Center signed transactions totaling 28,375 square feet of office and flex space.
The Bronx-based university hospital newly leased 8,500 square feet at 3 Executive Blvd., 7,710 square feet at 200 Corporate Blvd. S. and 2,555 square feet at 6 Executive Plaza, and renewed for 9,610 square feet at 100 Corporate Blvd. McGuire represented Mack-Cali.
In Cross Westchester Executive Park in Elmsford, MMO Music Group Inc. signed lease deals totaling 16,588 square feet of office and flex space at 50 Executive Blvd. Mack-Cali was represented by McGuire.
Also in Cross Westchester Executive Park, Honeywell International Inc. signed a 15,000-square-foot lease renewal at 125 Clearbrook Road. The tenant was represented by Neil Schorr of Realty Insight Group Inc. Mack-Cali was represented by Abry.
