BayCare buys Gulf Coast offices

BayCare Health System has spent more than $88 million this summer to acquire four office buildings throughout the Tampa Bay area it occupies, property records show.

Most recently, the health care provider and operator of 14 area hospitals bought a four-story building at 12780 Race Track Road, in Tampa, for $12.05 million, records show.

BayCare Properties LLC also acquired, from an affiliate of The Graham Group of Des Moines, Iowa, a four-story building in Safety Harbor, at 1840 Mease Drive.

That 140,000-square-foot building, which was completed in 2002, sold for $37.67 million.

The Tampa property, measuring 48,308 square feet, was completed in 2009.

“It just made sense for us to buy these medical offices,” says Dena Brannen, a BayCare spokeswoman. “We determined it was a good time to buy from a cost perspective.”

The two purchases followed a pair of separate deals BayCare executed with Graham Group earlier this year, for properties in Largo and Clearwater, Brannen says.

In Largo, BayCare bought the three-story Bardmoor Medical Arts Building for $16.63 million, according to property records. That 65,529-square-foot building, at 8839 Brian Dairy Road, was completed in 2007.

In Clearwater, BayCare spent $21.74 million to buy the PTAK Orthopedics & Neuroscience Building, at 430 Morton Plant St. That four-story, 84,212-square-foot building was completed in 2004.

In all, BayCare operates from roughly 450 locations around the Gulf Coast, according to its website.