Northwest’s Buranda Health Hub Greenlit

Canadian Northwest Healthcare Properties has won approval for its newest hospital at Woolloongabba in Brisbane’s inner south.

The eight-storey Buranda Health Hub is slated for a 3036sq m site at 7-17 Wolseley Street, near to the Princess Alexandra Hospital precinct. 

Brisbane City Council has approved the development, which will supercede an existing approval for a 20-storey integrated health facility for the site. 

Speaking at a healthcare summit last month Northwest executive director Chris Adams told The Urban Developer they were focused on growing their Australian footprint and expanding healthcare services in knowledge precincts. 

“We have been very active in the past couple of years, but the business is a longer term player here,” Adams said.

“Medical precincts is clearly the flavour of the day in the local context and people pivoting that way.

“We have patience in the development of these precincts … you’ve really got to work extremely hard and have a very dedicated and high-quality team to be able to deliver development projects in the current environment.”

Spanning six lots, the vacant site—purchased by Northwest last year for $12.54 million—is close to the Buranda, Dutton Park and Park Road train stations as well as the eastern busway and the PA busway platform.

Last year, the Toronto-based group made a failed $2.8-billion takeover bid for Australian Unity’s Healthcare Property Trust.

NorthWest is the largest healthcare real estate owner, manager and developer in Australia and New Zealand with almost $7 billion in assets under management. 

Adams said Northwest Healthcare Properties had three key focuses in the growth of its development book. 

▲ The site for the new approved health hub, which will neighbour the Princess Alexandria Hospital.

“It’s supporting the partners that we have in the traditional brownfield sense of growth of existing assets, it also has a focus on healthcare precincts of a significant scale that anchored by major public or private hospitals,” he said.

“The other interest is in the ambulatory care space, the small day surgery, and out of hospital care. We spend a lot of money on research and data analytics and understanding markets.”

Its development pipeline is almost $3 billion with 13 committed projects, nine of which are currently under construction 

The NorthWest Healthcare REIT currently owns 61 assets across Australia, predominantly on the eastern seaboard. 

Earlier this year Northwest Healthcare Properties Australia announced a 65 per cent expansion of its healthcare real estate joint venture with Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC.

It first entered the joint venture with GIC in 2018, which now has more than 20 healthcare properties across Australia worth more than $3 billion. 

Northwest REIT and GIC expanded partnership commitments by about 65 per cent, adding a further $2.4 billion to the war chest, funded through both debt and equity.