The North Shore-LIJ Health System is expected to close on a real estate deal next month aimed at continuing its growth in the outpatient care sector.
Through a continued partnership with a Massachusetts-based Waterstone Retail Development, the health care conglomerate will eventually take ownership of the I-Park office complex at 1111 Marcus Ave. in Lake Success in a deal worth about $100 million, a source with knowledge of the deal said.
North Shore-LIJ operates “one of the largest outpatient complexes” in the state in about 440,000 square feet of the building, which is across the street from the health system’s Long Island Jewish Medical Center, spokesman Terry Lynam said.
In the deal, the source said, Waterstone will buy the other 920,000 square feet from New York City-based Blackstone Group. The health system will then take ownership of the entire complex at the end of a 30-year lease period.
Lynam declined to discuss the details of the deal, but said it is expected to close in mid-December.
Taking ownership of the entire facility amounts to a “refinancing” of North Shore-LIJ’s lease there that is “more financially beneficial” for the health system in the long run, he said.
North Shore-LIJ made a similar deal with Waterstone last December, when the developer bought a 252,000-square-foot office building at 600 Community Drive in Manhasset, less than a quarter-mile from North Shore University Hospital, for $59 million.
At the end of a 32-year lease period, the health system will own the building, where it rents administrative offices and plans to open clinical space, Lynam said.
Representatives for Waterstone and Blackstone did not respond to requests for comment.
Both deals reflect North Shore-LIJ’s ongoing expansion into outpatient care, Lynam said.
Most recent growth in the health industry has been in outpatient facilities, which aim to provide care for patients outside of a hospital in places that are more accessible for them, he said.
Both office buildings are good locations for North Shore-LIJ outpatient clinics, Lynam said, because they’re close to the health system’s hospitals and are easy for patients to navigate.
“Because more and more care is being delivered outside of the hospitals, identifying appropriate space in convenient outpatient settings has been a priority now for many, many years,” he said.
The Marcus Avenue building has a unique history.
It was a manufacturing plant for defense and security company Lockheed Martin before I-Park Lake Success purchased it for $21 million in 2000, the New York Times reported that year.
Prior to Lockheed Martin’s tenure there, the complex served as a plant for the Sperry Corporation. The United Nations met there from 1946 to 1951, the Times reported, before its midtown Manhattan headquarters was completed in 1952.
