Meridian, a full-service real estate developer and owner of medical real estate, is pleased to announce that WelbeHealth recently signed a lease at Meridian’s recently renovated Cotton Medical Center, a 115,000-square-foot medical office complex located in Pasadena, Calif. WelbeHealth will occupy 14,200 square feet in the building complex’s South Tower and has applied to be a PACE provider (pending State and Federal approval).

“We are thrilled to be expanding our services into the Pasadena area and Cotton Medical Center is the perfect fit for us,” said Si France, MD, CEO at WelbeHealth, a private healthcare provider who offers managed medical and social services to seniors. “WelbeHealth is a new ‘PACE’ provider in California. PACE stands for Program All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly and focuses on helping people to live independently as they age. We opened a new facility in Stockton this past January and have submitted an application to be a PACE provider for the Pasadena, Glendale and Burbank area.”

Located at 50 Alessandro Place and 50 Bellefontaine Street, Cotton Medical Center sits adjacent to Huntington Memorial Hospital, one of Southern California’s strongest hospital providers, and near a new Shriners Hospitals for Children. The 2.8-acre medical office complex consists of a four-story, 52,000-square-foot building located on Bellefontaine Street, plus a five-story, 63,000-square-foot building and an adjacent, subterranean parking garage on Alessandro Place.  

“Cotton Medical Center is a twin-building medical office complex that features a variety of space options for small and mid-sized medical providers,” said Meridian Asset Manager, Heidi Duffy. “WelbeHealth will be occupying a little over 14,000 square feet across five suites becoming our largest tenant at Cotton to date. Cotton Medical Center is a beautiful, patient-oriented healthcare complex, making WelbeHealth a perfect addition to our existing tenant roster.” 

According to Meridian Project Manager, Jackie Perez, Meridian recently completed the build-out of the space for WelbeHealth. “We were able to relocate existing tenants in order to provide WelbeHealth its desired space and build it out to OSHPD III standards. It was a challenge to program the space in a way that provided proper patient flow over two separate floors and solved for I-Occupancy requirements, but we worked collaboratively with our design team, the City of Pasadena, and the Health Department to create a high quality, functional space. The location boasts impressive features such as skylights in the basement to create the illusion of natural light coming into the space. We’re very happy with how everything turned out.” 

WelbeHealth joins a lineup of a variety of other healthcare providers at Cotton Medical Center, including practices that specialize in Neuro Research, Pediatrics, Dentistry, Dermatology, Plastic Surgery, ENT and Cardiology.

“When Meridian bought the building, it was 71 percent occupied and now with WelbeHealth joining our roster of tenants, along with other tenant leasing activity, the building is 83 percent leased,” said Duffy. “We have 9,000 square feet available in the South Tower and 13,000 square feet available in the North Tower. We are also building out 3,000 square feet of market-ready suites that will be available turn-key this month.” For more information please contact Heidi at hduffy@mpcca.com.

Angie Weber and Dana Nialis, from CBRE’s Glendale office, represented Meridian in the lease transaction and Erica Frey from Colliers International’s Stockton office represented WelbeHealth.

Meridian currently owns and manages healthcare properties throughout the western United States. In late December 2018, Meridian acquired a 26,000-square-foot, 100-percent-vacant medical office building in Torrance, Calif., and plans to invest an additional $3.6 million by the time the building is fully leased. Earlier in 2018, Meridian purchased property in Downtown Long Beach, Modesto and Stockton, Calif., to build medical buildings in each of these locations. Meridian also completed the construction of a 10,000-square-foot, single-tenant, primary care clinic in Castro Valley, Calif. Meridian currently is pursuing acquisitions and developments in the Southwest and the Pacific Northwest.