Lion Health Centre sold to Primary Health Properties for £8.5m
PROPERTY investor Primary Health Properties (PHP) has bought the new Lion Health Centre in Stourbridge from a locally-based private developer for £8.5m.
PHP, whose regional base is in Worcester, is a real estate investment trust (REIT) which specialises in the health sector.
It originally purchased the site – which included the historic Foster and Rastrick foundry, famed for being the birthplace of the famous Stourbridge Lion steam engine – in 2012 and simultaneously exchanged a development and funding agreement (DFA) with the unnamed developer.
Construction of the new health centre began in the autumn of 2012 with the Lion Medical Centre – with circa 30,000 patients – expected to open next week.
Birmingham-based property consultancy JLL – utilising its healthcare and capital markets teams – acted on behalf of the developer.
The health centre has been developed from the ruins of a grade II listed Georgian building that had lain empty since 2003.
It has been turned into a health centre for the Worcester Street Partnership covering more than 20 GP practices on a 2.05 acre site.
The new Lion Health Centre on Bradley Road, which will also serve as a teaching practice, will be one of the biggest medical centres in the country.
The 27,986 sq ft centre will be wholly let for a 25 year term and will include 36 consulting rooms, nursing suite, minor surgery unit, physiotherapy suite, gym, dental practice, lecture theatre and teaching facilities together with a sub-let pharmacy and car parking for 132 cars.
James Hanson, lead director in JLL’s healthcare team, said: “Over the last three years we have seen the building, previously listed on English Heritage’s Buildings at Risk register, be transformed into a state of the art development that will be one of the biggest in the country based on the building size, number of doctors and sheer size of the patient list.
“Working in conjunction with Richard Goodall in the Birmingham capital markets team we were able to help the land owner work up planning, agree terms with the Primary Care Trust and source an appropriate medical investor.
“We are pleased that Stourbridge will soon reap the benefits of a medical centre and pharmacy within such an historic building.”
