The health care industry is undergoing tremendous change, driven by conflicting pressures to reduce cost, improve quality, and increase access for the populations it serves. We believe that the industry will respond by dramatically altering patterns of ownership, use, size, character, and location of health care real estate. As those changes are planned, the participants in health care real estate – hospitals and hospital networks, physician groups, research institutes, developers, REITs, private investors, and lenders – will encounter issues unique to this real estate sector: federal and state regulatory regimes; special land use controls; unique design and construction requirements or objectives; federal tax law limitations, and tax-exempt financing; competitive use concerns, and religious and ethical restrictions; and Stark and anti-kickback laws.
The health care real estate team at Davis Wright Tremaine consists of veteran real estate lawyers with substantial experience in this unique class of real estate assets, and a deep knowledge of the objectives and concerns of the owners, users, and funders of health care real estate. Our attorneys are skilled in all aspects of health care real estate, including:
- Purchase, sale, development, and expansion of medical facilities
- Leasing, subleasing, and the creative use of ground leasing
- Joint ventures and other forms of co-ownership and equity investment
- Project, conduit, tax-exempt, and mortgage financing
- Land use entitlements and zoning
- Design and construction
- Environmental reviews
- Sustainability and LEED certification
In addition, our health care real estate lawyers work closely with lawyers in our nationally-prominent health care practice in order to better serve our health care clients on complex projects requiring multiple legal specialties, such as the development of a new cancer care center or the expansion of a hospital campus. This collaboration ensures that our real estate lawyers remain fully knowledgeable in the market and regulatory forces shaping our health care clients’ business plans, and they have a clear understanding of our client’s objectives in each project involving health care real estate.