Just what the doctor ordered

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This article was published 14/03/2016 (3530 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A new business park in Selkirk has landed its first major tenant — an ambitious, multi-phase development that will include a medical clinic, a health-and-wellness complex, a transitional-care facility, a commercial/retail complex and a restaurant plaza.

A Selkirk development group — Herbsman Inc. — is developing the Easton Place Medical Centre on 16.5 acres within the city of Selkirk’s new business park.

The business park is located across the street from the new $103-million Selkirk and District General Hospital, which is now under construction, and the Selkirk Mental Health Centre. Herbsman spokesman Neil Winther and Selkirk Mayor Larry Johannson said that makes it an ideal spot for a new medical centre.

Winther said work on the 50,000-square-foot medical clinic is scheduled to get underway this spring and should be completed by the fall of next year. About the same time that work wraps up, Herbsman hopes to begin building the retail mall and restaurant plaza.

Winther said the mall and the plaza will be attached to the medical centre and should be completed sometime in 2018. The plaza is expected to include seven or eight restaurants, while the retail mall will likely include a variety of different types of retailers, including some that sell health-care-related products.

The other two key components in the development — an 80,000- to 100,000-square-foot health-and-wellness complex and the transitional-care home — will be non-profit facilities. Winther said construction can’t begin until Herbsman raises a sufficient amount of money through a fundraising campaign that’s now getting underway. The company hopes to reach its fundraising target by the spring of next year, he added.

In addition to those five key components, the Easton Place development will also feature a centrally located, park-like area that includes a wellness garden. There will also be an interactive Museum of Health and Wellness that will incorporate both indoor and outdoor spaces, and showcases elements of Selkirk’s history, culture and heritage.

“The goal is for Manitobans to view Easton Place as a destination site; a place not unlike Assiniboine Park or The Forks, where families can go to enjoy healthy food, be educated on local history, engage in health and fitness activities, participate in leisure activities and relax in a peaceful and stimulating environment,” Winther said. “If necessary they can also have a wide variety of medical needs addressed at the Medical Clinic.”

He said the company doesn’t have a final cost estimate for the project.

“It will be in the tens of millions (of dollars). How many tens of millions, we haven’t quite figured that out yet.”

The Easton Place development will take up three of the 11 lots in the first phase of the business park’s development. The remaining eight lots total about 14.5 acres.

‘The goal is for Manitobans to view Easton Place as a destination site; a place not unlike Assiniboine Park or The Forks’– Neil Winther

Johannson said a new business park was needed because the city’s industrial park is fully occupied, and the city has been fielding inquiries from a number of businesses that are looking to either move to Selkirk or expand their existing operations there.

“Once this first phase (the Easton Place development) gets up and running, I think it’s only a matter of time before we have more new tenants in there,” he added.

He said he wouldn’t be surprised if some of them are also medical-related businesses.

“I think what this (the Easton Place project) is going to do is really cement Selkirk as a medical centre. We’ll have a new hospital, the Selkirk Mental Health Centre, the first quick-care clinic outside of Winnipeg, and the first MRI machine in the Interlake,” he said. You have to brand yourself as a community, and I believe this medical field is where we’re going. So I do think we’ll see more of this.”

Winther said a variety of medical practitioners are expected to lease space in the Easton Place medical clinic, including surgeons, family doctors, orthodontists, dentists and audiologists.

He said the health-and-wellness centre will likely be between 80,000 and 100,000 square feet.

“The philosophy is to look at health and wellness broadly and to make this an attractive space for more than just rehab or cardio rehab and those types of things,” he said. “It will also be a learning centre and a space for the kinds of specialists that don’t necessarily fit well into a medical clinic.”

Examples he gave were acupuncturists, massage therapists and psychiatrists.

The transitional-care facility will target patients who are well enough to leave the hospital and need somewhere to go until they can either return home, or a space becomes available in a personal care home.

“This is quite needed in Manitoba,” Winther added.

Know of any newsworthy or interesting trends or developments in the local office, retail or industrial real estate sectors? Let real estate reporter Murray McNeill know at the email address below, or at 204-697-7254.

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca