Medical companies lease long-vacant new office building

by David Reed

March 18,2009

After sitting vacant for more than three years, two medical companies have leased all the space in the Bluff Creek Center at 3220 Bluff Creek Drive.

            Travis McGee, a member of Bluff Creek Investment Group, said two medical tenants will be leasing all 27,000 square feet of the building, employing over 150 people once they move in.

One of the tenants, Time Line Recruiting, expects to finish moving in by the first week of April, Timeline Office manager Nicole Lanham told CBT.

            In November Bluff Creek Investment Group bought the property, which many had considered a symbol of a sagging real estate market. Its location at the intersection on Grindstone and U.S. 63 made it a conspicuously vacant new office building.

            The area has been filling up with medical tenants recently. Construction has recently begun on a new acute care nursing facility on 3.5 acres owned by Americare, said McGee, a realtor with Certified Realty Inc. who helped the company sign a tenant. Nearby Falling Leaf Plaza also houses Concannon Plastic Surgery and Skin Rx, and there is another medical office building next door.

            McGee said the idea is to develop a sort of medical office corridor in the area. The location is attractive to medical tenants because it's easy for out of town clients to find it from the highway, he said.

            The tenants for Bluff Creek Center should be moving in by the end of the summer, McGee said, and the names of all of the companies should be announced within a month.

            "It was just waiting for the right deal at the right time," McGee said.