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Biz metcalf Pulakos CPA firm at home in new digs |
Monday, May 10, 2010
Two practices expand into Medical Arts Plaza
By Richard Metcalf
A pair of locally owned health care practices will gain some much-needed room with a planned July move down the street to the revitalized Medical Arts Plaza on Pill Hill.
Sister corporations Rio Grande Family Medicine and Albuquerque Clinical Trials will expand from about 3,800 square feet at 717 Encino Place NE, where they've been for about 15 years, to 8,100 square feet at 801 Encino Place NE. The practices, which share 17 employees, see a combined 40 to 50 patients a day.
"We've been feeling the pinch for a couple years," said Beth Corbin, owner of Rio Grande Family Medicine and co-founder of Albuquerque Clinical Trials. "We literally can't hire another person because we have no place to put them – we need five more people."
Rio Grande Family Medicine, which has more than 5,000 patients, was launched in 1988 by Corbin's late husband, physician Steve Hsi. Together, Hsi and Corbin founded Albuquerque Clinical Trials the same year to conduct independent clinical research.
"We do about 25-30 clinical trials a year," Corbin said. "We contract with all the big pharmaceutical companies, working with their drugs through the FDA clinical trials process."
The family practice is adding a third physician, Melissa Garcia, to its current staff of physicians Elizabeth Bretton and Jan Kovach and nurse practitioner Carol Maddon, all of whom are also involved in the clinical trials. Hsi and Corbin's son, Andy Hsi, is clinical trials administrator.
The move to one of the six buildings at Medical Arts Plaza is full circle for Rio Grande Family Medicine office manager Juanita Stull.
Stull started working in the building at the corner of Encino and Medical Arts Avenue in 1977 when she joined the staff of the late Jerry Greenblatt, a longtime Bernalillo County coroner and University of New Mexico Athletic Department physician. Hsi took over and eventually relocated Greenblatt's practice when the latter retired, inheriting Stull in the process.
Built in 1951, Medical Arts Square, as it was known then, has been described as "the nation's first drive-in medical complex." The six buildings, comprising a total of 57,233 square feet, surround an interior parking lot on the 5.4-acre site. The complex, which once housed the offices of 60 doctors and dentists, was a major factor behind the area's nickname of Pill Hill.
The 2007 sale of the complex to a New York investor was named one of the marketing deals of the year by the local chapter of Certified Commercial Investment Members. The asking price was $5,725,000.
The new owner tapped Cauwels & Stuve Realty and Development to both manage the property and undertake a $500,000 renovation. Much of the work involved catching up with deferred maintenance, repairs for some fire damage and an overall face-lift to the property.
During the two-year renovation, occupancy dropped to a low of about 75 percent. The lease with sister corporations Rio Grande Family Medicine and Albuquerque Clinical Trials brings Medical Arts Plaza back to just more than 92 percent occupancy.
The plaza's lease-up has been done by Barbara Haase and Jeff Stuve of Cauwels & Stuve, who are marketing the remaining 4,410 square feet of available space at an asking rate of $17.75 a square foot, plus janitorial service.
Adding some talent
Rich Diller left the remnants of the now-defunct NAI The Vaughan Company, the commercial brokerage tainted by the financial and legal scandals of founder Doug Vaughan, about a month ago to join Maestas & Ward Commercial Real Estate.
"He's a seasoned veteran, highly knowledgeable with a sterling reputation," said Steve Maestas, managing partner of Maestas & Ward. "He's just a quality guy. He's going to add to our team, our depth and our experience."
NAI Vaughan, a standalone operation, was on the sideline when sister company Vaughan Company Realtors and Vaughan personally filed for bankruptcy court protection in February. In March, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil complaint alleging Vaughan had been running a Ponzi scheme, which involved defrauding people who had invested money with him.
Guilt by association appeared to doom NAI Vaughan, which saw an exodus of both staff and customers in late March. Diller, who had been with Vaughan since 1982 and headed its commercial brokerage since 1986, left in early April. On his last official day at work, state and federal investigators raided the NAI Vaughan office as part of a criminal investigation into Vaughan's activities.
Diller moved to Maestas & Ward with associate Rose Cabezut – together they form a team – where they joined another former NAI Vaughan employee, Wayne Unze, who left in late 2009.
Named Realtor of the Year in 1997 by the Commercial Association of Realtors New Mexico, Diller is a partner with Kino James, a veteran broker with Maestas & Ward, and two others in the 41,900-square-foot Bricklight Courtyards redevelopment project at 115 Harvard SE. The mixed-use project won multiple awards in 2008 and 2009.
Construction project trends
Local general contractors in New Mexico face an increasingly aggravated situation with the trend of out-of-state contractors getting more and more big public construction projects. The trend is particularly alarming in light of what the Great Recession has done to choke off private construction.
In more normal economic times, private construction accounts for 70 percent of all commercial, institutional and government construction as a rule of thumb. Since the beginning of 2009 in New Mexico, there's strong evidence that private construction has dropped to less than 30 percent of the total.
Combine the trend of out-of-state contractors getting more public projects with a continued downturn in private construction and the impact could be devastating in New Mexico.
One out of every four contractors in the state lost money in 2009, compared to one out of 10 companies nationwide, according to a survey by Arlington, Va.-based Associated General Contractors of America. Those money-losing contractors will find it hard to survive another bad year in construction.
This makes public projects all that more crucial.
One out of every four public building projects went to out-of-state contractors between Jan. 1, 2009, and March 31 of this year, according to state building permits issued by the Construction Industries Division with a construction cost of $2 million or higher.
On the downside, out-of-state contractors won 24 public projects valued at $241 million. For the purpose here, an out-of-state contractor has its corporate headquarters outside of New Mexico.
On the upside, in-state general contractors won 75 public projects valued at about $1 billion. The majority of those projects were done by local governments and school districts, which generally show a distinct preference for using in-state contractors.
Building permits are issued for shovel-ready projects, not those still in the planning stage. In addition, state permit numbers do not include public construction projects permitted at the local level. For example, Albuquerque Public Schools gets building permits for all of its school projects from the city of Albuquerque.
Richard Metcalf covers commercial real estate for the Journal. You may reach him at 823-3972 or rmetcalf@abqjournal.com.
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