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Osborne Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery Commits to the Community

Osborne Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery has been providing a valuable service to families in the DeKalb County region for over 30 years. Dr. Thomas Osborne provides a diagnosis for oral conditions as well as implants, removal of impacted teeth, cosmetic surgery, and oral bone grafting through a staff of six. Dr. Osborne trained at the Johns Hopkins University and continues his education through the Seattle Study Club.

CHALLENGE:

“I’ve never seen such a clear-cut opportunity to drive value in what we do. Either we could execute on a very technical task in a very short timeframe or Osborne’s Oral Surgery practice would close down, the value of the practice would be destroyed and jobs would be lost. It was a monumental challenge.”

Bryant Cornett, SIOR, LEED AP

By the end of 2014, Dr. Thomas Osborne knew that:

  1. retirement from his oral surgery practice, Osborne Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery, was a real possibility,
  2. but in order to transition/sell the office, he’d need to have at least ten years of lease term left on his practice.
  3. the Northlake Pkwy office complex in Tucker, which he’d been in for the last 30 years, was being redeveloped into a strip mall, and
  4. the cost to build out a new office would require a nearly $300,000 investment—most of which could not be recouped in a sale of the practice.

Dr. Osborne’s current Landlord had a replacement building to lease him, but by March 2015, that fell through. What didn’t fall through was the demolition plan on Dr. Osborne’s Northlake Pkwy office. The bulldozers were coming June 1. A normal process to lease and build out a dental office takes six months. We had three.

When I was brought on, Dr. Osborne had to choose to either move quickly into a new office or shut down the office and lay off staff—an Oral Surgery office can’t close for a few months during its busiest time and expect to reopen.

STRATEGY:

I had to develop a plan to achieve three goals simultaneously. We had to

  1. push back the demolition by assuring the Landlord we weren’t going to be a problem and that we were going to transition out prior to demolition,
  2. locate a space that would provide a high Tenant Improvement (TI) allowance and therefore “pass on” as much of the improvement cost through the lease rate, and
  3. compress buildout schedules so that Dr. Osborne could stay open during his busiest time.

The Demolition. The Landlord had a handful of problems, actually. Most of the Tenants had moved on, but because he had been working to put them in a building that was no longer an option, some of them were stuck. With Osborne’s help, we assembled a coalition of other Tenants in the Northlake Pkwy office complex to come together to negotiate a single deal in another building. This would become helpful later, but it showed the Landlord that we were serious about getting out of their way. Seeing this, they agreed to move the demolition date back 30 days. We later negotiated with the Landlord to begin demolition at the far end of the park, which bought us another two weeks. Then we negotiated some repairs that bought us another two weeks. Each step was of faith, but in the end, July 31 was enough.

High TI Space. The Tucker market is composed of mostly older vintage office and retail product, so finding a well-capitalized building (to fund a larger TI package) was going to be difficult. With three tenants in tow (our Tucker Coalition) we had leverage and scale in negotiating with a new Landlord. We were a package deal, so Landlords knew that they’d win all three tenants or none.

We located an office complex that Boxer Properties had purchased in 2014. The buildings were built in 1974 and had been recently renovated, but were still falling short of the occupancy levels that Boxer wanted. They had just completed a medical deal with a podiatry group on the first floor and were eager to build velocity. We brought the opportunity to lease the majority of another floor, so they were willing to meet our TI requirements. Deal terms were struck April 1 and we had fully executed leases to the Landlord on April 14.

Compressed Schedule.  We laid out a plan early. All three Tenants had to complete schematics, MEP construction documents and be in for permitting prior to lease execution. There was a risk in this, but we would never have stayed on schedule without having this in place. It would also have to be completed on a design-build basis to speed up schedule. PDH Construction was selected as general contractor for all three Tenant build-outs in order to expedite subcontractor engagement and reduce costs. They also submitted plans via peer review to save two weeks on permitting (an extremely long lead time item in Tucker) and began demolition on an early demolition permit.

“Having represented dentists for the last 15 years, I knew all of the best and fastest players in the market. I had favors I could call in and when I told outside vendors what needed to be done, they trusted that I was telling them the truth. Without those relationships, we’d never had made schedule.”

Bryant Cornett, SIOR, LEED AP

SUCCESS:

With a lot of trust from Dr. Osborne and Dr. Robert Marshall, we did it. He opened the new offices of Osborne Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery on August 1, 2015. All objectives were met, giving his business a great foundation for whatever lies ahead. He was able to maintain his current patient base by staying close to his previous location while enjoying the benefits of a new, state-of-the-art facility.

PERSPECTIVE:

“I was fortunate to have been recommended, Bryant Cornett. Without his guidance and help I doubt that I would have a practice today considering what we were facing.  It was an extremely stressful and difficult situation and Bryant did an excellent job in finding a great resolution.”

Thomas E. Osborne, DDS  (Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery)

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