Providence St. JosephHealth has partnered with Newmark KnightFrank to optimize its real estate portfolio and unlockcapital currently tied up in real estate investments. The brokeragefirm has identified non-essential assets in Alaska, Washington,Oregon, Montana and California. The asset classes include medicaloffice, industrial, office assets and vacant land. Providence St.Joseph put out an RFP to find a firm with both healthcare andmulti-market experience, and hired Newmark late last year toexecute the optimization strategy.

“Providence St Joseph Health's senior leadership deserves a lotof credit in making real estate a priority focus in determiningwhether if necessary to own, lease or sell. They analyzed theirentire real estate portfolio and determined which assets fell intothe category of non-core and non-strategic to the health system,”Garth Hogan, executive managingdirector of healthcare West at Newmark Knight Frank, tellsGlobeSt.com. “Our NKF team weighed in with experience in handlingsimilar assignments and assisted in creating the final list,completed in December 2018, which consists of nearly 60assets.”

The current market dynamics motivated Providence St. JosephHealth to monetize portions of its portfolio now. We're seeingproperties sell at record prices.  So it's the best timeto maximize the values and unlock capital,” says Hogan. Inaddition, the healthcare industry is in need of liquid capital. “Inhealthcare, capital is precious right now.  Nearly everyhealth system and hospital has plans for rolling out a new deliverymodel, technology and improved access to care,” adds Hogan. “Tomake this happen requires capital. Selling real estate can helpprevent going further into debt in the bond market.”