Investors recently bought a medical office building on Shipyard Boulevard in Wilmington that's leased to New Hanover Regional Medical Center, brokers said this week.
The doctors who owned the structure at 2150 Shipyard Blvd., which was built in 2005, sold it to an entity called NHRMC Shipyard DST, according to New Hanover County property tax records.
This summer, the same investors
bought another medical building at a price of over $5.3 million. It's a 17,000-square-foot structure at 1725 New Hanover Medical Park Drive that's also leased by NHRMC.
The buyer lists a Charlotte address on its Secretary of State corporation documents, and an assignment-of-rents document recorded by the county's register of deeds was signed by Larry Lanzrath, sole member and manager of NHRMC Manager LLC, manager of NHRMC Shipyard DST.
The exact total for the 2150 Shipyard Blvd. property was $5,845,986. Brokers did not share any more information about the buyer, except to say that the buyer does not want to comment on the purchase.
Announcing the sale in a news release, Eastern Carolinas Commercial Real Estate officials stated, "Given the favorable economic conditions, the property and owners were identified and approached by John Hinnant, vice president of ECCRE, and Nick Silivanch, a partner with ECCRE. After a review of interest rate trends and predominate Cap Rates, the owners agreed to work with ECCRE on the disposition of the 19,000-square-foot medical office building."
Tim Winslow, cardiologist with Cape Fear Heart Associates, was one of the sellers. He was previously with Coastal Cardiology Associates, which along with Wilmington Cardiology
merged to become Cape Fear Heart Associates, part of the NHRMC Physician Group. Winslow and the other owners have not occupied the building at 2150 Shipyard Blvd. for about five years, Winslow said.
Current tenants are NHRMC practice OB/GYN Specialists and Atlantic Fetal Medicine, also part of the NHRMC Physician Group.
Winslow said New Hanover County's recent decision to explore
a potential sale of NHRMC had no impact on the owners' decision to sell: Nevertheless, as a result of the potential hospital sale, he's happy with the choice.
"With that size of investment, there's a level of uncertainty there that I'd rather not have going forward," Winslow said.
But he also said he thinks that in the past couple of years, medical real estate has "become a more attractive investment due to the fact that there's been such a change in the retail industry ... [with] medical real estate, I think generally speaking you've got solid tenants."