Developers to break ground on Joe DiMaggio medical office in Wellington

Developers Alan Benenson and Leon Ojalvo plan to break ground on Wellington Office Parc, a medical office complex, in February with Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital as the tenant. 

The hospital signed a long-term lease with the developers for the built-to-suit 32,000-square-foot building at 3315 South State Road 7 last year, on the border of Wellington and Lake Worth. They plan to close on a roughly $7 million construction loan soon, Ojalvo of Liberty Base Investments told The Real Deal.

It marks the hospital’s first location in Palm Beach County and the second branded Joe DiMaggio facility. It’s slated to open in March of next year.

Ojalvo said Lennar developed the Wellington Parc townhomes, a 92-unit community, behind the site and then sold the 3.5-acre plot to Benenson, of MAS Development, and Ojalvo for $1.4 million last summer. He declined to comment on terms of the lease and buildout costs. The project marks the first for Ojalvo, who has a background in finance. Benenson has more than 30 years of development experience, Ojalvo said.

The hospital is part of Memorial Healthcare System, and will offer specialized pediatric services, according to the Palm Beach Post. It’s part of a growing trend of hospitals branching out and building outpatient centers, like Baptist Health South Florida, Mount Sinai in Miami Beach and Nicklaus Children’s Hospital.

In late 2015, Nicklaus announced it was expanding to Aventura, where it opened a pediatric care center the following year. A new 122,000-square-foot Baptist outpatient and medical complex is under construction in Miami Beach, which is being developed by Crescent Heights, and Baptist has also proposed a 30,000-square-foot, $30 million medical office building in the Cornerstone Corporate Center in Plantation.