Big Sky Medical Enters New Texas Market

Texas Tech Physicians of El Paso at Transmountain. Image courtesy of Big Sky Medical

Big Sky Medical has acquired Texas Tech Physicians of El Paso at Transmountain, a 110,465-rentable-square-foot medical office building in El Paso, Texas. Healthcare Realty Trust sold the asset, and the facility also became subject to a $36 million loan set to mature in 2025, according to El Paso County records. The property was previously subject to a $33 million loan issued in 2019 and provided by WestStar Bank, CommercialEdge data shows.

The four-story Class A facility completed in 2016 sits on 4.7 acres. The property features three passenger elevators, controlled access and offers 600 parking spaces. Medical services offered include a wide array of specialties, ranging from family medicine to surgical treatments. The property is anchored by Texas Tech Health, while the rest of the space is occupied by BHS Physicians and Tenet Healthcare, which holds a 65-year unsubordinated net ground lease, expiring in 2080, according to CommercialEdge information.

The property is located at 2000 Transmountain Road, within the Hospitals of Providence-Transmountain campus, 14.5 miles from downtown El Paso. Other medical facilities in the area include University Medical Center of El Paso – West, Children’s Pediatric Practice and Providence Medical Partners – Resler, among others.

Big Sky Medical’s Texas presence

The current acquisition marks the company’s entry in the El Paso health care sector. Currently, the market has an inventory of 120 medical office buildings, a total of approximately 6.3 million square feet, CommercialEdge data shows.

The company has been expanding its Texas footprint recently, including several acquisitions last year. Through a $190 million loan provided by Capital One, Big Sky Medical purchased Westinghouse Building at Providence Park, a 175,725-square-foot facility in College Station, Texas, in November 2022. On that same day, the company closed on another asset, Greenpark One, a 134.910-square-foot medical office building in Houston, marking it as its second investment in the Houston market. Later in the month, the firm acquired, through the same fund, a 122,942-square-foot facility within the Texas A&M Health Science Center campus in Bryan, Texas.

New directions for the company

Last week, it was announced that Bahrain-based GFH Financial Group purchased a majority stake in Big Sky Asset Management. Big Sky will continue to own the company alongside GFH. In a prepared statement, Nael Mustafa, co-chief investment office at GFH, said that the company has already acquired two medical office portfolios through a joint venture valued at more than $800 million. Back in April, Newmark facilitated the formation of the partnership.

Up until now, Big Sky was focused on markets in the Southwest, Southeast, Midwest and Mid-Atlantic. A new strategy is taking shape in 2023, as the company recently made its first expansion into the far West, with the acquisition of Valley Orthopaedics, a medical office building located in Modesto, Calif., 90 miles east of San Francisco.