Omni West Plans Medical Condo Projects

IRVINE, CA- Omni West Group Inc. has acquired two properties for a pair of medical condominium projects, each with a different partner and one that includes a general office building as well. In a project in Moreno Valley, Omni West will team with HG Capital of Menlo Park on an 80,000-sf development, while in Lake Elsinore the Irvine-based company will partner with Sunbelt Properties Management on a 66,000-sf project.

The Moreno Valley development is called Moreno Valley Medical Center and will be built on five acres of a 10-acre site adjacent to Moreno Valley Community Hospital. The complex, on Iris Avenue near Oliver Street, will feature two 40,000-sf buildings next to the a 101-bed hospital, which is close to Aquabella, a 3,000-unit senior lifestyle community under development by Highland Fairview Communities.

Moreno Valley is one of California’s fastest growing cities with “a rapidly increasing senior-citizen population that will require more outpatient services,” notes Kip Dubbs, president of Omni West Group. Dubbs says that Omni West chose the project location for a variety of reasons, including the “strong need for newer, more state-of-the-art medical facilities in the area.”

The project’s location and its features are designed to appeal to “a wide range of medical users including general practitioners, dentists, pediatricians and many others,” according to Andrew Jobst, EVP of HG Capital. Construction on Moreno Valley Medical Center is expected to begin in the second quarter of 2007 and be completed in early 2008.

Omni West’s Lake Elsinore project is called the Plaza at Lakeview and will feature two buildings of 33,000 sf each on a five-acre development site near Railroad Canyon Boulevard and Canyon Estates Drive in the newly developed master-planned community of Canyon Estates. One building will be tailored especially for medical office users, while the other is intended for regular office users such as law firms, financial institutions and other professional organizations.

General office and medical office space are both in short supply in Lake Elsinore, less than 50,000 sf available, notes Andy Pham, president and managing member of Sunbelt. Omni West’s Dubbs adds that the medical office portion of the project will fill a need resulting from the growth in the area’s growing population and the continuing trend for more medical procedures to be performed outside of hospitals.

Construction of the Plaza at Lakeview is expected to begin in the second quarter of 2007, with completion anticipated in the fourth quarter. Omni West Group and Sunbelt bought the development parcel from Lake Elsinore-based Abbacy Holdings, with Rancon Real Estate in Murrieta representing all parties in the transaction.