Special care for medical office building
by RaeAnne Marsh

Construction activity spread last month to a second part of Scottsdale Healthcare’s Thompson Peak medical campus. In the shadow of the partially built hospital, construction commenced January 8th on Scottsdale Healthcare’s Grayhawk Medical Plaza.

Located on approximately 4 acres of the 22.7 total that comprise the campus, Grayhawk Medical Plaza will provide 55,000 square feet of medical office space. It is anticipated this will house 14 to 17 private practices, according to Michael Brinkley of Scottsdale Healthcare Realty Corp, the company’s entity that manages all real estate for Scottsdale Healthcare. “There’s no minimum office size,” he says, but offers 2,200 square feet as the likely average.

Infrastructure differentiates  medical office from other commercial office buildings, he explains. For instance, more plumbing is necessary as there are multiple examination rooms, each with its own sink. Elevators must be larger, to serve exigencies of patient and practice needs. Transmission of sound is, of course, a bigger consideration, for wall insulation and doors. Lab boxes–containing samples sent out from the doctors’ offices to off‑site laboratories–must be accommodated in a place convenient for pickup; here, the potentially unsightly array will be unobtrusive to view behind a screen wall. And parking is  designed to afford convenience of access from the lot to the building.

Convenience of access provides the reason why the building front faces away from the street. The parking lot is located, not streetside, but on the interior of the property. Patient parking will be closest to the door; reserved parking for the doctors and staff, farther away. Two driveways enter the property from 73rd Street, one just north of the building and the other just south of it.

But it’s not a featureless “back” of a building that faces traffic on 73rd Street, but rather what Brinkley calls a “formal front.” After all, this will eventually be the first view to many of the Scottsdale Healthcare Thompson Peak campus.

Explains Octavian Grigorescu, managing principal of SWA Architects, who designed Grayhawk Medical Plaza, “Seventy‑third Street will eventually connect to Scottsdale Road, and this will be a point of entry to the hospital.

“I designed the building to appearas organically integrated to the site as possible.” Grigorescu notes the property runs skinnier and longer than the average lot. The building measures 360 feet long and 75 feet wide, with a shape that follows the street. “It has a sinuous shape that gives it a friendly, receiving look,” says Grigorescu.

“But,” he adds, “it faces the relentlessly west. With that sun, will the doctors be cooking themselves?” Grigorescu designed an architectural feature over the windows to serve as horizontal mini‑blinds. Jutting out three feet from the wall, they cut 60 percent of the sun. “The interior receives plenty of light but not direct sun, [making this] an energy‑efficient building.”

The site presented another challenge as well. Although it appears flat, there is in actuality a 12‑foot drop from one end to the other. Grigorescu’s design features a system of retaining walls to incorporate a little terracing. This approach avoids adding the visual impression of mass, he explains.

Coincidentally, Grigorescu is also a resident of Grayhawk and serves on the community’s development committee. Although he offered to recuse himself from the committee, he relates his colleagues expressed their pleasure that it was he who was designing the medical building because he would bring to the project the local sensitivity of the residents. The building is situated as far as possible from the residential structures and height was kept to two stories, so as to diminish impact on the skyline.

Aesthetics, however, were not his only concern in designing Grayhawk Medical Plaza. Designing a cost‑efficient building factored considerably in the process. For this reason, building materials employed are mundane rather than pioneering, according to Grigorescu. “The cost of health‑care being what it is, we didn’t want to add to it by imposing high rent on the doctors.”

Grayhawk Medical Plaza will support the new hospital by providing nearby medical offices for doctors and surgeons. Plus, says Scottsdale Healthcare spokesman Keith Jones, “Doctors get office space near the hospital, and local residents get more access to medical services.”

The variety of physician tenants anticipated to occupy the building includes practitioners of family medicine and such specialties as cardiology, orthopedics and urology as well as plastic and general surgery.

Leasing for Grayhawk Medical Plaza is being handled by Mike Brinkley of Scottsdale Healthcare Realty Corp. For further information, call (480) 882‑4135.