More urgent care facilities operating in retail centers

In an attempt to cut down on costly emergency room trips, medical companies are opening up small clinics in retail outlets across South Florida.

“Urgent care centers are starting to pop up all over South Florida,” said Gregory Matus, regional managing partner of the commercial real estate firm Franklin Street. “They’re convenient and very good for shopping center owners because they’re filling a lot of vacancies.”

In October, Baptist Health South Florida opened an urgent care clinic across from the Sawgrass Mills mall. Since then the clinic has seen 3,100 patients, according to the Daily Business Review.

In Boca Raton, West Virginia-based MedExpress Urgent Care has signed a lease at the HSBC Plaza. And since 2005, MD Now Medical Centers has opened 22 locations across South Florida – 18 of which are in shopping centers.

“If we’re not in a shopping center, we like to be right in the mix of the retail trade,” Courtenay Yergens, MD Now’s director of real estate and development, told the Daily Business Review. [DBR] – Christopher Cameron