Houston Medical Building Acquired by REIT

SUGAR LAND, Texas – (Realty News Report) – JLL Income Property Trust, a REIT, acquired the Sugar Land Medical Plaza – a newly constructed, Class A, 37,000-SF medical office building in the southwestern Houston suburb of Sugar Land.

The purchase price was approximately $18.4 million.

Developed by Houston-based D’Agostino Companies, the Sugar Land Medical Plaza is located near the intersection of the Southwest Freeway and University Boulevard in the Telfair master planned community. The 2.8-acre site is east of the Brazos River, near the Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital.

Completed in 2020, the two-story property is fully leased to a diversified roster of healthcare providers. The property includes a surgery and imaging center, and a full diagnostic suite including the newest MRI, CT, ultrasound and X-Ray machines.

“Healthcare-oriented properties continue to be our focus within the office sector given the favorable underlying fundamentals driving long-term tenant demand,” said JLL Income Property Trust President and CEO Allan Swaringen. “Sugar Land Medical Plaza fits squarely within our thesis of investing in well-located, state-of-the-art medical office buildings with specialty healthcare tenants that have long-term commitments to the property through their buildouts and leases. The shift towards outpatient, standalone surgery centers as an alternative to traditional hospital settings, combined with the continued aging of our population positions healthcare-oriented real estate as an attractive addition to our stable value, income-oriented portfolio.”

Houston ranks as the fourth largest city in the US along with one of the youngest, fastest growing populations with 2 percent annual population growth over the past ten years as compared to the national average of 0.8 percent. Sugar Land is 20 miles southwest of Houston and boasts five hospitals within a three-mile radius of Sugar Land Medical Plaza.

Houston is home to the largest medical complex in the world, the 1,345-acre Texas Medical Center, where 106,000 people are employed and 50,000 students are undergoing training in the life sciences. The Medical Center has 50 million SF of developed space and $3 billion in construction is underway. An average of 26,280 babies are born at the Medical Center annually and 13,600 heart surgeries are performed. Some 750,000 people seek emergency room treatment every year at the various Medical Center institutions.

Other medical properties have been sold in the Houston area recently. The Webster Medical Office & Life Science Campus, a two-building, medical office complex, with a 32,000-SF cell therapy laboratory,on the southeast side of Houston was acquired by investors. JLL Income Property Trust’s healthcare allocation is 15 properties totaling more than 1.1 million SF, valued in excess of $462 million and representing 8 percent of its overall portfolio.