BRONX, NY (October 12, 2021) — Consumers are increasingly traveling to shopping centers for a checkup or vaccine as health care providers seek more convenient locations, said Joseph Simone of Simone Development Companies.
“Across the country, health providers are converting former Sears buildings in shopping centers into ambulatory surgical centers, hospitals and doctors’ offices,” said Joe Simone, President of Simone Development Companies. “CVS Health’s announcement earlier this year that it will remake hundreds of its stores into primary care clinics will bring health care to even more shopping centers nationwide.”
Simone Development Companies anticipated the delivery of healthcare at shopping centers with the adaptive reuse of the Boyce Thompson Center, an 85,000 square-foot, mixed-use center with doctors’ offices, restaurants and retail in Yonkers, N.Y.
“Redeveloping shopping centers and strip malls with health care tenants makes sense because these properties are already designed to handle high-traffic uses and they provide ample parking,” said Simone. “More importantly, these local shopping centers are typically situated within walking distance or an easy commute from residential neighborhoods.”
It is unclear how many Sears locations are being converted for health uses, but there are examples of this conversion nationwide, including Selinsgrove, Penn.; Garden City, N.Y.; and Riverside, Calif. Simone noted that CVS Health’s goal to turn hundreds of its stores into primary care centers poses challenges to medical networks whose patients must wait weeks for routine health services.
“The CVS announcement is triggering a reconsideration of site uses everywhere. The recent decision by Yale New Haven Health System to build an ambulatory care center in a shuttered Macy’s store in Meriden, Conn. is an example of large health networks responding to CVS’s retail health strategy,” said Joseph Simone. “This shopping center land rush by health providers is a boon for health facility builders like Simone Development Companies.”