Ground has been broken for a new Class A medical office complex that is seen as filling a growing need for such spaces in the New Milford area.
Todd Payne, chairman of Danbury-based The Goodfellow Cos., announced recently that a six-acre parcel located at 120 Park Lane Road in New Milford would be the site of two new state-of-the-art medical and professional office buildings.
“The need for this project came from our clients,” said Payne. “We were approached by the developers, who were previous clients of mine, to do site selection work in the area within approximately one mile of New Milford Hospital. They wanted to try and find some land to build a medical office building for themselves.”
Payne added that while going through the selection process it was determined that there was a “significantly greater need for Class A medical office space in the New Milford marketplace.”
Eventually, the group ended up with the roughly six-acre site on which they are currently developing the two buildings.
SHF LLC has retained The Goodfellow Cos. to handle all aspects of development, sales and management for the undertaking. That means all of the firms under the Goodfellow umbrella will be retained. The Goodfellow Cos., founded in 1934, includes REI Property & Asset Management, Goodfellow Ashmore Real Estate, Apex Development Corp., Goodfellow Homes and Bridgewater Funding.
‘A Step Up’
SHF is a group of local doctors who found that they not only were quickly running out of space in their respective practices, but that there was a true need for modern professional and medical office space within close proximity of New Milford Hospital.
Drs. Evan Hack, Diane D’isidori, Frank Fanella and Jonathon Sussman formed SHF, LLC to fill that need and set about finding a firm to manage the project, which will be less than one mile north of New Milford Hospital on the east side of Route 202.
After considering two other firms to manage their project, the doctors retained The Goodfellow Cos. “We found them to be uniquely qualified, with divisions capable of managing all aspects of the project under one roof,” said Hack. “We have had great interaction with the team from Goodfellow and meet with them weekly, covering all aspects of the development. They keep us abreast of all progress and we are very pleased with their ability to interact with our office.”
Payne said, “We are quite proud of the fact that SHF turned to us for this project. It is always great to see our various companies working together on a project that demonstrates each of their strengths and individual talents, while emerging as a cohesive unit, streamlining the operation and process. Things get handled more efficiently, less time is wasted and since we have the advantage of all being in one building, the economy and productivity for our client becomes obvious.”
Apex Development Corp. has broken ground on the project with completion expected by the spring or summer of next year. Architect Ray Sevigny of Sevigny Architects in Hartford, who designed the two buildings, said, “The design concept for these buildings was to create a rural, or home-like, image. The result is a modern health care and office facility that belies the technology and amenities within, such as pre-wired Internet and cable access.”
Scott McCarthy, president of Apex, concurred by saying, “The residential-style windows and pitched roof give these buildings a look that is so far removed from the typical commercial ‘box’ that they will actually enhance the area and be very pleasing to look at. The goal here was very similar to another of our New Milford projects, where the Union Savings Bank on East Street had to be constructed in a way that complemented the pre-existing vintage buildings. The Goodfellow Cos. are a full-service real estate development, brokerage and management firm. Projects like this, where all our companies are involved, truly exhibit our skill set. It’s what we do, and we happen to do it quite well.”
Payne said area medical professionals already have made commitments to the new space.
“The developers themselves are really only going to be taking about one-quarter of the project. The balance of the space will be sold as condominiums to other medical and professional groups,” he said.
He also noted that while Goodfellow handles the management and leasing of a large amount of medical office space in nearby Danbury, there is really no Class A medical office space in New Milford.
“The majority of the medical community in New Milford works out of converted houses,” said Payne. “This is a really a step up from the type of space that’s available right now.”
Until this project, the New Milford medical community hasn’t had the opportunity to work out of such space. The complex at 120 Park Lane Road will be the first of its kind in the area. There are no plans for surgical units at the new office, and all currently committed tenants are specific medical practices.
The buildings will not be exclusively limited to medical tenants, however, and professional groups will be welcome as well.
So far, Goodfellow has commitments for 65 percent of the project in hand, and the firm has barely cleared land for the site.
“I expect that by the end of summer we’ll be committed up to 80 percent,” said Payne, who noted that the first tenants should be in the building in less than 12 months.
REI Property & Asset Management will handle the eventual property management. Scott Cooney of Goodfellow Ashmore Real Estate is marketing the property, with Building No. 1 almost full; space is still available in Building No. 2.
Cooney said, “This facility is quite desirable for two reasons: its proximity to New Milford Hospital and the modern features that are actually being built right in.”
Because the new buildings will house medical facilities, careful consideration was taken in regard to accessibility. Payne said architects worked with the grade of the site as much as possible in order to have at-grade access for all of the space. The two two-story buildings have no elevators and no common areas. Each entrance is essentially accessible from the street surface.
“We worked with the design of the building and the topography of land to create very economical medical offices and very functional offices by having no common area,” said Payne.
The process began two years ago. Payne said the approval process in the town of New Milford went very smoothly.
“The town worked well with Apex Development, our construction firm, as well as the architects. In this type of process we try to anticipate the needs of the community, and I feel that these designs are very complementary to the surrounding landscape,” he said.
He added that Apex recently completed a bank building roughly one mile from the new medical offices in New Milford’s historic district.
“For that project we had to be very sensitive to the surroundings, and with the medical offices we were trying to do something similar that would work nicely with the historic architecture of the town,” said Payne.