Can Orlando's MOB Market Win Against Miami-Dade?

MIAMI—Call it a first of its kind. Cushman & Wakefield just pushed out the Central Florida Medical Office report to shed light on the inventory of medical office buildings, imaging centers, outpatient clinics and ambulatory surgery centers in the Orlando MSA.

Can Central Florida keep up with South Florida on a healthcare real estate front that has attracted especially heavy hitters to Palm Beach and Dade County?

“Central Florida has nearly 11 million square feet of medical office space, and new hospital and on-campus medical office construction is expected to more than triple by 2015,” says Anne Spencer, a director based in CushWake's Orlando office. Prepared by Spencer, Jeff Sweeney, and Austin Johnston in the firm's Healthcare Practice Group, the report will be published annually with a quarterly market update.

“The market was in need of a single reference for the growing inventory, and we believe our Central Florida Medical Office report will be an important resource as the medical office market continues to expand,” says Spencer. Her group provides solutions that target the operational, financial, regulatory, and strategic challenges faced by health care providers throughout the US.

Here's CushWake's early take: Nearly every hospital in Central Florida has new construction projects underway or planned in the next few years. The majority of new construction is in Central Florida's suburban areas, which is seeing rapid population growth.

According to the report, hospitals and medical research facilities are driving most of the new construction. Privately developed medical office buildings lag. The firm says this is due to the large push by hospital systems to acquire independent physician groups, and the population growth in Central Florida, many of which are an aging population and therefore require acute care which is administered at the hospital level.