The nation’s orthopedic industry must continue to grow to accommodate the needs of baby boomers, whose numbers stand at roughly 74 million, according to the Pew Research Center.
The Campbell Clinic, which operates five outpatient orthopedic clinics and two ambulatory surgery centers in the Mid-South, began preparing for this need 26 years ago when they purchased the property immediately adjacent to the Germantown clinic’s location at 1400 South Germantown Road.
“When we moved to Germantown in 1992, we bought 15 acres of property,” says Campbell Clinic CEO George Hernandez. “The western portion of that property houses the existing Campbell Clinic office. We reserved the balance of it for future expansion. We used a portion of it back in 2002 for our ambulatory surgery center and kept the remaining five acres reserved for future expansion. That time has now arrived.”
The Germantown expansion was announced in 2017, the ceremonial groundbreaking took place in May of 2018, and construction is expected to commence this summer. Plans are for the facility to open in fall of 2019.
The clinic’s Germantown location near the intersection of Wolf River Boulevard and Germantown Road comprises a 60,000-square-foot clinic and a 12,000-square-foot ambulatory surgery center.
Campbell Clinic services include sports medicine, pediatric orthopedics, joint replacement, orthopedic oncology, physical medicine and rehabilitation, and surgery of the hand, hip, foot, knee, shoulder, and spine.
The new four-story medical office, which will sit on that long-vacant five-acre parcel, will feature outpatient orthopedic clinical space, expanded physical therapy and imaging suites, and an ambulatory surgery center with eight operating rooms. The current location has four operating rooms.
The surgery center will feature state-of-the-art technology and equipment, some of which will be brought over from the existing surgery center, the rest of which will be new purchases.
“We’re working to improve access and patient satisfaction, and the new building will allow us to expand our outpatient surgery center,” says Dr. Frederick Azar, chief of staff at Campbell Clinic Germantown. “As more techniques and procedures are able to be done on an outpatient basis, we predict more joint replacements being done on an outpatient basis for the future. So, we’re doubling the size of our ambulatory surgery center.”
Campbell Clinic is known as a local leader in sports medicine, providing care for the Memphis Grizzlies and Memphis Redbirds, as well as athletes at the University of Memphis, Christian Brothers University, Rhodes College, and about 15 area high schools.
“Sports medicine is a big part of what we do, and that’s why we’re broadening the scope of our sports performance services, which will be an integral and large part of the plan for the new office,” Hernandez says.
An option to lease a portion of the new building to third-party tenants upon completion is also under consideration.
“It’s twice the size of the next largest location — our current Germantown office, which is about 60,000 square feet,” Hernandez says. “We are admittedly building for future capacity and growth. Our additional plan is to occupy three of the four floors once the building is complete, and we may lease the vacant floor for a period of time. That affords us the opportunity to expand onto the fourth floor at some future date.”
The new facility will add about 120,000 square feet of new space to the Germantown campus at a cost of about $40 million. Campbell Clinic retained Rendina Healthcare Real Estate to help guide the design, development, and construction.
Rendina is a national, full-service developer of healthcare real estate headquartered in Jupiter, Florida, with satellite offices in Dallas, Texas; Tucson, Arizona; Solana Beach, California; Cincinnati, Ohio; and Livingston, New Jersey. Rendina has managed healthcare real estate solutions for about 30 years and was hired in part because of the project’s aggressive timeline for completion.
“We hired them to coordinate all of the design and construction for the new facility,” Hernandez says. “They have the expertise and breadth to manage the development of a facility of this magnitude.”
Campbell hired Davis Stokes Collaborative, P.C. of Nashville as the architect for the new Germantown facility because, Hernandez says, “they have a real depth and breadth in orthopedic facilities.”
The clinic hired Flintco of Memphis for pre-construction services. A general contractor has not yet been named, but Hernandez said Flintco is a contender. The clinic has partnered with Cushman & Wakefield/Commercial Advisors for the last several years in a strategic brokerage and advisory role for all clinic facilities.
Along with Campbell Clinic’s physical expansion and expansion of services comes expansion of staff. It employs about 450 individuals at all locations, and about 50 of those are physicians. There are several incoming physicians and Campbell plans to recruit additional practitioners over the next five years and continue to train future orthopedic surgeons.
“Our research and training are part of our core mission, and this allows us to expand those areas of our mission,” Azar says.
A Cordova office was leased in 2014 as a five-year solution with the intention of transitioning back to the Germantown campus.
Azar says the clinic’s investment in expansion is a crucial medical service to accommodate the future of the healthcare needs of a growing community.
“The percentage of knee replacements will probably go up about 700 percent in the next 20 years, and hip replacements will probably be over 300 percent. We anticipate doing more joint replacement as outpatient. For younger, healthier patients, those can be done in a same-day surgery setting.”
