The development will include 90,000 to 100,000 square feet of medical office space with an anchor tenant of TriHealth, according to Brian Copfer, Miller-Valentine Group’s president of Cincinnati sales and development.
FIRST REPORT: Another large development coming to Liberty Twp.
The site also will include roughly 8,000 square feet of retail, which will be “either a restaurant or a couple of small retail users,” Copfer said. In addition, the project will feature a 101-room hotel, likely in its second phase of development.
“We’re closing on the property first quarter of this year and we’re going to start infrastructure improvements second quarter of this year,” he said. “We’re still working on the schedule for when we’re going to go vertical on these assets, but … I can see something happening starting third or fourth quarter this year.”
Retail space is yet to be determined, based on anchor tenants, Copfer said.
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“It could be one sit-down restaurant taking the whole 8,000 square feet, it could be two or three tenants,” he said. “It could be a fast-casual concept and a coffee store … we don’t know. It all depends on marketing and who wants to be in the area.”
The 101-room hotel may be self-developed by Miller-Valentine or end up with an office user, he said.
“If an office user would surface, we could (submit) a new plan into West Chester and change the hotel use into office,” Copfer said. “I think they would gladly make that change.”
TriHealth initially contracted with Miller-Valentine Group to purchase 33 acres at 8000 Liberty Way and develop the medical center there, but last August it said it had switched locations to adjacent property just south of it in West Chester Twp. The remaining 57 acres of the site would have featured Miller-Valentine’s retail and lodging component.
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“There were a lot of factors that facilitated the change from the larger parcel to the small parcel, a couple of them being the needs of TriHealth and … infrastructure issues,” he said.
The property itself is “well-located” in the Liberty and West Chester Twp. area in relation to other developments that are in the works or that have opened in recent years, including mega retail Liberty Center and Cabela’s on the west side of I-75 and The Christ Hospital Medical Center-Liberty Twp. on the east side, Copfer said.
“It’s right at the corner, has great visibility and it’s right across the street from VOA Park, which provides a nice amenity for any of the users,” he said. “We’re half a mile from Liberty Center and all the amenities there, so it’s just a well-positioned piece of property.”
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In 2014, TriHealth opened Group Health West Chester, a medical office for the multi-specialty doctors group, on Ohio 747 West Chester Twp.
The Cincinnati-based health network also operates Bethesda Butler Hospital in Hamilton and McCullough-Hyde Memorial Hospital in Oxford.
Joe Hinson, the president and CEO of West Chester-Liberty Chamber Alliance, said Miller-Valentine Group is a well-respected, “first-class” organization.
“They’ve done a lot of work on the corridor between Cincinnati and Dayton,” Hinson said. “In fact, Bill Krul, (Miller-Valentine’s senior partner and executive co-chair and its former CEO) was a former Everest Award recipient, so we know about Bill and his history here. He’s done a lot over the years and has been a big proponent of why Cincinnati and Dayton are where they’re positioned today with West Chester and Liberty obviously being in a key area of growth and development.”
Having the TriHealth name connected with the site adds even more prestige to the development, he said.
“People know them through Bethesda and the Good Sam names,” Hinson said. “TriHealth is a leader in health care … and to have them in our area just adds to quality of health care that’s growing in the West Chester-Liberty area and bringing our two major markets together.”
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