Marshall Medical Center, PATRA Expand Sacramento Footprint

The companies have agreed to occupy space vacated by Blue Shield at an office campus in El Dorado Hills, Calif.

The Ridge at Town Center West

Health-care provider Marshall Medical Center and insurance company PATRA have agreed to occupy 75 percent of the office space vacated by Blue Shield of California at The Ridge at Town Center West in El Dorado Hills, Calif.

Blue Shield, which previously occupied the entire 246,000-square-foot, four-building campus, has reduced its space to two buildings, following a sale-leaseback deal with ProEquity Asset Management and Solaris Capital. The $49.3 million transaction closed in July 2022. According to CommercialEdge data, the property also became subject to a $40 million acquisition loan, provided by Walker & Dunlop.

Currently, Marshall Medical Center is under contract to purchase one of the vacant buildings within The Ridge at Town Center West. According to Village Life, the sale of the 50,000-square-foot property is expected to close in the summer of 2023. Marshall Medical Center plans to transform the office structure into a clinic and begin offering medical services by mid-2024.

Marshall Medical Center was represented by Managing Director Tom Conwell of Newmark, while Executive Vice Presidents Tom Walcott and Jason Rutherford with Colliers International assisted PATRA in its lease of an entire floor at the campus. ProEquity Asset Management was represented by Executive Vice President Michael Stassi and Vice President Daniel Baker from the JLL Capital Markets Sacramento office, in the lease negotiations with PATRA.

From office use to medical services

Completed in 2003, the low-rise Class B office property covers 29 acres. The buildings feature open floorplates of 26,000 square feet, controlled access and 1,514 parking spots. The covered parking area includes 31 Tesla solar power generation rooftop arrays that provide low-cost power to the campus.

The Ridge at Town Center West is located at 4201 Town Center Blvd., 27 miles from downtown Sacramento, next to the El Dorado Freeway. The property is situated between the retail center El Dorado Hills Town Center and the master-planned community of Folsom Ranch.

With Marshall’s occupancy, the property will house medical services, including family practice, orthopedics, cardiology, laboratory and physical therapy, among others. And following PATRA’s lease of one full floor, with a move-in scheduled for the summer of 2023, the campus will be 90 percent leased, with a vacancy of just 25,000 square feet.

A fourth quarter 2022 Colliers report on the Sacramento office market shows that the last two years have seen the lowest net absorption levels since 1998, influenced by the remote-work trend.

Leasing activity between 2020 and 2022 was 41 percent below the average recorded between 2017 and 2019. Such factors have led to rising vacancy levels, with the average rate in the fourth quarter at 18.7 percent, a slight increase from the previous quarter and up 670 basis points since the first quarter of 2020.