LORTON, VA-Skanska USA just delivered Inova's new healthcare facility, the Inova HealthPlex - Lorton, a LEED Silver-certified, two story, 50,200-square-foot free standing emergency department. Trends in the health care building space—namely Obamacare—will be driving more such developments, says Bill Brennan, co-chief operating officer for Skanska USA Building's Greater Washington D.C. office. He tells GlobeSt.com that the company has about 15 projects -- that is, medical office buildings or healthPlexes -- in the pipeline that can be attributed in some way to the new health care law.
One project in the DC area is another HealthPlex at Mt. Vernon, he says. "It includes an expansion to the existing OR in the main building, but the rest is additional space that is more akin to a medical office building." That project will deliver in about 20 months Brennan says. "There are other projects that are just in the preliminary discussion stage." In some cases, the company is working with smaller hospitals seeking financing for their projects. "So those are possible leads," Brennan says.
The market has factored out the possibility of a substantive revision of Obamacare, Brennan says, which means projects that had been in the tentative planning stage are moving forward. "Nationally, all of the major health care systems are trying to push people out of expensive care rooms and into MOB facilities," he says. Skanska has been positioning itself for this trend for the last few years, since the legislation started to take shape.
The Inova HealthPlex in Lorton is comprised of two floors. The first floor houses an emergency department and the second floor will hold an ambulatory service center.
© Touchpoint Markets, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to asset-and-logo-licensing@alm.com. For more inforrmation visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
