Memorial Healthcare pays $49M for dev site in Hollywood

Memorial Healthcare System bought a development site in Hollywood for $49 million, with preliminary plans for a health and wellness center.

Memorial Healthcare bought 8.2 acres on the southeast corner of Hollywood Boulevard and State Road 7 from the Ben-Shmuel family, according to records and real estate database Vizzda. 

The property at 101 South State Road 7 consists of a two-story building now leased to Gordon Food Service grocery store, and an adjacent parking lot. The 156,000-square-foot retail building was completed in 1970, records show. 

Sellers Shlomi Ben-Shmuel, Izac Ben-Shmuel and Lior Ben-Shmuel are founders of now-defunct Swiss Watch International. In 1983, the family founded the watch company, which was acquired by California-based Clearlake Capital Group in 2012. Swiss Watch shut down in 2017. 

Jason Tobin and Louis Granteed of Tobin Real Estate represented the buyer. 

Memorial Healthcare wants to redevelop the site, though a concrete plan is yet to be hammered out. The health care network plans to consult with Memorial and community interests and convene a group to come up with a project, according to a Memorial news release. Preliminary discussions have focused on a possible community health and wellness center. 

Led by CEO K. Scott Wester, Hollywood-based Memorial is a network of hospitals and wellness facilities throughout South Florida that include Memorial Regional Hospital South and Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood. 

This isn’t the first time Memorial has purchased property. In 2018, the hospital paid $6.5 million for a 16,000-square-foot Petco building at 12251 Pines Boulevard in Pembroke Pines, with plans to use the land as part of the expansion of Memorial Hospital West. The Petco is now closed. 

Other South Florida hospitals also have gotten in the real estate game. Last year, Baptist Health paid $17.9 million for an 18-acre site. It is part of the larger 70-acre Kendall Town Center mixed-use development planned between Southwest 88th and 91st streets and Southwest 162nd and 158th avenues in Miami-Dade’s West Kendall neighborhood. Baptist wants to develop the land with uses that complement its nearby West Kendall Baptist Hospital. 

Hollywood is being quickly built out. The Calta Group, led by Italian brothers  Ignazio and Gaetano Caltagirone, are expected to start construction this summer on an eight-story apartment building with 180 units at 2233 Hollywood Boulevard. The project will mark the Caltagirones’ first multifamily development. 

Related Group and BH Group have submitted plans for a 38-story condominium with 350 units, and a 43-story condo-hotel with 500 units at 3210 – 3690 South Ocean Drive, next to the Diplomat Beach Resort in Hollywood.