DATE: Wednesday, October 1, 1997            TAG: 9710010494

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY MEREDITH COHN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: SUFFOLK                           LENGTH:   68 lines

BON SECOURS FACILITY IS EXPECTED TO SET A NEW TONE IN SUFFOLK

When developers break ground today on the Bon Secours Maryview Ambulatory Care Center, more will be at stake than the region's physical health.

City leaders and real estate developers also are pinning the area's economic well-being on the project. They expect the 80,000-square-foot building, housing the medical facility and other offices, to be the first in a line of upscale developments in the northern part of the city.

The building, constructed by Charlottesville-based Brinkman Development and Management Corp., will be the first Class A, or top-of-the-line, space in the Harbor View Business Park, near the intersection of Interstate 664 and Route 17. It will also be the first in the city.

Maryview Medical Center, which is shifting some medical services to Suffolk from Portsmouth, will lease most of the building from Brinkman. About 25,000 square feet will be available for rent, a spokesman for Brinkman said.

But with top-notch space in short supply regionally and absent from the city, hopes are high that the facility will be a symbol of things to come.

``If we went out and tried to find something to fit all the characteristics of the first tenant at Harbor View, we couldn't have picked a better one,'' said Robert Williams, executive vice president of the Jorman Group, which sold the land to Brinkman. Jorman still controls the business park and more than 2,000 acres of land in Northern Suffolk that has been slated for residential and commercial building for more than a decade.

Already, Jorman has overseen development of an industrial park and some moderately-priced homes on the east side of I-664. More pricey homes, some in the $700,000 to $800,000 range, and a golf course are in the works on the west side of the highway. And Williams said Jorman plans to build its own up-scale office building in the business park by next year.

Williams said the medical facility will draw in other businesses and help fill the golf course community.

While the area is an untested market for upscale buildings, real estate industry observers say it seems ripe for that kind of development. A healthy economy, the proposal for a third crossing to the Peninsula and a lack of available top-notch office space in the region should propel the project.

``It's significant because of its timing,'' said Donald R. Crigger, vice president and director of office leasing at Goodman Segar Hogan Hoffler commercial real estate.

According to an office space survey conducted by GSHH and the Old Dominion University Real Estate Center, South Hampton Roads had a 6 percent vacancy rate for Class A space as of June 1997. Out of 2 million square feet, just 134,000 square feet are available.

Crigger said upscale development usually goes into proven markets. But because most of the Maryview building is already committed, there's little risk to the builder, who is investing $15 million in the project. Further, Crigger said, there will be some nice office space left to market.

A spokesman for Maryview, which bought Portsmouth General Hospital in 1996, said moving some services from the two medical facilities to Suffolk made sense. The new Maryview facility will offer outpatient surgery and diagnostic and laboratory services.

Thomas A. O'Grady, Suffolk's economic development director, who is helping to market the space, said there has already been a lot of interest.

The Maryview building will likely be full when it comes to market next year, said Michael R. Matthews Jr., president of Brinkman Development. Most tenants are expected to be doctors looking for satellite and expansion space. Matthews said he would expand the building or construct another if demand dictates.

Matthews said he is unsure of what the rent would be but said it would be in line with other Class A buildings, which average around $16 a square foot in South Hampton Roads. ILLUSTRATION: VP MAP

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu