A new medical office commercial center is being planned next to the Lake Mary Wellness and Technology Park.
Verax Lake Mary LLC, led by developer and medical neurosurgeon Dr. Ravi Gandhi, just paid $5 million for about 7.5 acres located southwest of Rinehart Road and Williston Park with plans to build two new medical offices and an urban-style retail center.
The seller, Chamonix Investments LLC, bought the wooded property at 430 Rinehart Rd. in 2003 for $189,300.
Dr. Gandhi told GrowthSpotter he’s working with Lake Mary city planners to begin prepping the site for new development, which could accommodate up to 56,000 square feet of medical office space and a little more than 17,000 square feet of retail space.
A conceptual site plan shows two 2-story medical offices tucked behind two, single-story retail buildings with multiple storefronts. Dr. Gandhi said he wants to lure local restauranteurs and retailers to create an urban-style commercial center with ample outdoor seating and recreational space.
“There’s going to be a courtyard area between the two retail buildings that will feature large glass windows,” he said while adding he envisions a sushi restaurant, local pizzeria, cafe and brewery setting up shop at the project, dubbed Bent’s Station. “We want to create a destination where people in the area can hang out.”
Lamm & Co. Partners is the contractor. Mitch Collins P.E. is the civil engineer.
Ashley Walker, a senior vice president at Millenia Partners, said Lake Mary is a prime location for new hospitals and medical facilities because it lacks supply to meet growing demand.
She adds “medical offices have always been a more stable asset for investments, but after going through COVID-19 it showed its resiliency and the market’s desire for healthcare, making it a relatively safe and durable investment.”
Walker is working with Dr. Gandhi on a project in Winter Garden, where Ravi is leading a group of investors in developing a new 24,000-square-foot medical office.
His Orlando Neurosurgery practice will occupy a portion of the building as well as AdventHealth, which plans to open other orthopedic, brain and spine care surgery centers at the facility.
Dr. Gandhi said he plans to go vertical in the next couple of weeks on the Winter Garden development.
His Bent’s Station project, along Rinehart Road, joins other health campuses being built in the area, as well as a new assisted living facility and multifamily development.
In 2019, Orlando Health opened a two-story, 40,000-square-foot emergency department and 3-story, 60,000-square-foot medical office just south of Dr. Gandhi’s proposed medical office center. The plans are part of Orlando Health’s Reinhart Road campus, which will include a 6-story, 134-bed full-service adult acute care hospital with obstetrics and NICU services as part of a future phase.
The Orlando Health campus sits within the 150-acre Lake Mary Wellness and Technology Park, where Sonata Senior Living and capital partner, Berkshire Residential Investments, recently broke ground on a $62 million, 193-unit assisted living facility.
Orlando-based real estate investment trust Parkway Property Investments LLC is close to completing a new 300-unit apartment complex within the office technology park at 962 Bentstation Lane. The Helix at Lake Mary apartment complex will be managed by the Bainbridge Companies, according to online marketing material.
Further north, Altamonte Springs-based AdventHealth is planning a 58,270-square-foot medical office building next to its emergency room hospital at 950 Rinehart Road.
The 3-story commercial building, designed by HuntonBrady Architects, will include primary and specialty care practices, imaging, outpatient sports medicine and rehab, and lab services, Jeff Grainger a spokesperson for AdventHealth’s Central Florida Division told GrowthSpotter.
It will also feature an ambulatory surgical center, he said. Construction is expected to be complete in late 2022.
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