Developers and Kootenai Medical Center are snatching up properties in the Ironwood Drive medical corridor west of the Coeur dAlene hospital, and prices for property there are surging, says Monte Risvold, a real estate executive with Tomlinson Black North Idaho Inc., of Coeur dAlene.


The Ironwood corridor, bordered roughly by Interstate 90 to the north, Ironwood Drive to the south, Northwest Boulevard to the west, and U.S. 95 to the east, already is dominated by medical office buildings, and more are on the way.


Investors, including some from out of state, are looking at properties eagerly, and one snapped up a building recently shortly after it was listed, Risvold says. Also, he says land is selling for between $10 and $12 a square foot, double from three years ago, and is expected to continue to go up.


Land in the core (of the Ironwood corridor) is very hard to get, he says. There are a few odds and ends left.


Risvold adds, The Ironwood corridor is developing in a very similar, but micro way, to the Sacred Heart area. The closer to the hospital, the more valuable the property is.


Kootenai Medical Center CEO Joe Morris has a similar view of whats happening in the corridor and adds that its beneficial to have physicians and their offices close to the hospital.


Its convenient for physicians and patients to be able to walk back and forth from the hospital, Morris says. Theres not a lot of land left, and what is there is so expensive, only a few are willing to pay for it.


In one new purchase, an Oregon investor bought the former North Idaho Day Surgery building at 2205 N. Ironwood Drive and currently is remodeling it, says Risvold, who is marketing several properties in the corridor. The investor, who doesnt want to be named, is converting the 8,000-square-foot structure into medical offices, he says.


In another new transaction, KMC bought the Shawn Montee Timber Co. building at 2251 N. Ironwood Center Drive for $495,000. Also, KMC has obtained options to buy several parcels near the hospital, Morris says. He adds that the hospital currently is negotiating for another piece of property, west of the hospital.


We have the potential down the road for owning almost 40 acres in the Ironwood area, he says. Weve acquired about nine acres in six pieces, creating almost one contiguous piece, on the north side of Ironwood, Morris says.


KMC expanding


On April 30, KMC expects to close on the purchase of five acres of land and a building from Panhandle Health District where KMC will expand its hospital campus. After several years of negotiation, the two parties agreed last month on a $2.1 million price.


The parcel borders the hospitals western and northern edges and includes considerable vacant property that KMC can use for expansion, says Don Soltman, KMCs vice president of ancillary and support services. Panhandle Health District employees will remain in the structure at 2195 Ironwood Court until Sept. 1, 2006, or until the districts own new 46,000-square-foot building is erected on seven acres at Atlas Road and Honeysuckle Avenue.


The hospitals purchase of the health district property is the latest in a series of real estate acquisitions by KMC.


Kevin Bettis, who owns Bettis Construction Inc., of Post Falls, and has been developing properties in the corridor over the last year, recently completed construction of a 5,500-square-foot building at 943 Ironwood Place, which is on the north side of Ironwood Drive close to the hospital.


About two months ago, Bettis wrapped up construction of a new 5,000-square-foot building at 1015 Ironwood Drive. He has leased spaces in the building to a Coeur dAlene physician and a tanning salon.


Bettis company also is remodeling the former North Idaho Day Surgery building in the corridor.


Remodeling buildings that have good proximity to the hospital is the best way to attract physicians, he says. As the community grows, more physicians are coming here.


Also recently, a group of Coeur dAlene investors said it plans to build a $13.8 million medical office building on a 4.5-acre site near Ironwood Drive. The planned three-story structure at 980 W. Ironwood Drive, just west of the Ironwood Athletic Club, is expected to house private health-care operations.


The 100,000-square-foot building likely will have 17 office-condominiums. That project is slated to start shortly and is scheduled to be completed in November.


Because undeveloped land is limited, some investors are buying older buildings and are remodeling them for medical use.


People are buying existing buildings, rehabbing them, and putting them back on the market, Risvold says. Some buildings have already changed hands twice.


KMC, which is located just southwest of the U.S. 95 and I-90 interchange, is the focal point of health-care employment in the county.


The number of health-care jobs in Kootenai County has grown 84 percent in the last 10 years, and 40 percent in the last five years, says Morris. Health-care payroll is the best segment of the total economy payroll.


Kootenai Medical Center was built on a 26-acre site in 1966, Morris says. He says the hospital used to be on the northern outskirts of Coeur dAlene, and today is centrally located.


At that time, many people thought it was too far out of town, but in retrospect it was a good decision, Morris says. We were able to expand and grow for the last 38 years. Being near the intersection of U.S. 95 and I-90 is fairly ideal from a transportation standpoint.


Creating a campus


Having recently completed all of the projects called for in a master plan that guided its development over the last five years, KMC now plans to create a new campus master plan that will outline how the hospital will grow over the next 20 years, Morris says. In May, KMC will hire a consultant to work on the plan, and it expects to complete the planning project by the end of this year or in early 2006.


The plan will look at the potential and how to best put it all together in a campus environment, and where we should develop it, Morris says. The project is a blueprint so that we can grow smartly.


He adds, We also will look at how we should flow traffic. Its already crowded, and we would like to keep as much traffic off of Ironwood as possible.


Recently, KMC completed construction of a 400-space parking garage at a cost of about $4.7 million. The concrete structure was designed for future expansion, Morris says.


The parking garage could be seven stories, he says. It would give us more land to build on. Currently were renting space for our financial services department off of our site.


Morris suggests that KMC could expand the parking garage and build over the current ground-level parking lot, which is north of the hospital.


KMC could shift its accounting department, which includes about a dozen people, to one of the office buildings it has secured. The three-story hospital also could add another floor for clinic space and additional services, he says.


The North Idaho hospital has completed several master plans over the last 25 years. The most recent planning effort came in 2000, says Soltman.


Weve decided to go back and redo the 2000 plan because we made a significant deviation from it when we added cardiac care, Soltman says.