SWFL health center pays $15.5 million for new Fort Myers HQ

Family Health Centers of Southwest Florida has bought two adjacent buildings in Fort Myers to use for its new headquarters.

The properties, which the local health care organization paid $15.5 million for, are at 2234 and 2270 Colonial Blvd. They total 81,941 square feet.

Details on when it would move into the space were not immediately available. It currently operates at 1926 Victoria Ave. in Fort Myers.

LQ Commercial Real Estate Services, which represented the seller, a pair of LLCs tied to Tampa-based Sila Realty Trust, announced the deal and says in a statement that centralizing services at the new complex works toward the organization’s goal of “improving patient outcomes through accessible healthcare.”

Fort Myers-based Family Health, according to its website, provides primary health care, preventive health care, disease management and health related educational services in Lee, Charlotte and western Hendry counties. Its services are open to anyone including “the medically underserved, migratory agricultural worker families, the homeless and other special populations who require access to health care.”

The organization, according to its profile on Candid GuideStar’s website, began its work in 1975 as “the migrant project” and was funded through a 1964 grant to the Lee County Health Department. In 1977 it began offering services to people who are below the federal poverty level and incorporated as the Lee County Migrant Health Council. In 1985 it merged with the Hendry County program, reincorporating in 1991 as Family Health Centers of Southwest Florida.

Its total assets, as listed in its 2023 Form 990 posted on the nonprofit research company’s website, are $173 million.

According to Lee County property records and the state’s Division of Corporations database, the two properties were previously owned by a pair of LLCs with addresses that match Sila’s and list the company’s CEO Michael Seton as its authorized delegate.

Lee records show Sila paid $24.7 million for the 2270 Colonial Blvd. property and $11.95 million for the building at 2234 Colonial Blvd in 2015.

(The health care REIT was then known as Carter Validus Properties. It became Sila in 2019 when Carter Validus Mission Critical REIT and Carter Validus Mission Critical REIT II merged in 2019.)

LQ’s Adam Palmer and Steve Wood along with John Heald of CBRE represented Sila in the deal. Andrew Saluan of AJS Realty Group represented Family Health.

LQ says the deal is the “largest office sale by size in Southwest Florida so far this year.” These properties, Palmer says, “sold for a greater price per square foot than what you typically see vacant office buildings selling for in other markets” and is a sign that the office sector remains strong in Southwest Florida.