Former Grocery Becoming 'Medical Plaza' - April 11, 2004 By GREG JUNEK (Business Editor) A group of Tyler physicians is working to bring life back into the former Brookshire’s grocery store building at South Beckham and East Fifth Street. Dr. Aaron DuVall, a partner in the group Digestive Health Specialists of the Tyler LLC, said the building, at 1800 S. Beckham Ave., will be called Tyler Medical Plaza. Digestive Health Specialists will occupy about a third of its 61,000-square-foot space, and the remainder will be leased to other medical tenants. He said the new location will allow Digestive Health Specialists to do more for patients than it is able to do in its current location. “We will have a clinic there just like we have here,” said Dr. DuVall, referring to the group’s current home, 733 S. Fleishel Ave. “We will also have an ambulatory endoscopy center, which will be the first of its kind in Tyler.” Dr. DuVall said the group hopes the project will be completed some time in the fall. He said it is a “multi-million dollar project” for which no final bids for the interior had been awarded yet. The building will be able to support other procedures, depending on a tenant’s needs, he said. These include catheterization, ambulatory and surgical hospital operations, diagnostics, laboratory, dialysis, ophthalmology, medical offices and other uses. “We may have eye doctors, we may have family practice doctors,” Dr. DuVall said, adding the group wanted to make the uses the center would support broad. “Right now, we really do not know who all we’re going to have.” Brookshire Grocery Co. closed its store in the building in January 2001, and the building has sat mostly idle since then. Renovation plans to turn the old grocery store building into Tyler Medical Plaza include modifying the exterior building skin surface, extending the building’s elevation parapet walls incorporating architectural elements and adding a high-design lobby and common areas including skylights. Plans also include resurfacing, redesigning and re-striping the 297-space parking lot, adding significant landscaping and irrigation, adding lighting, installing signage and installing an elevator to serve the ground floor and first floor. Part of the total square footage is a 7,000-square-foot ground floor on the South Fleishel Avenue side, Dr. DuVall said. When the building was a grocery store, customers typically entered through the front, or first floor. “We will have a clinic there just like we have here,” said Dr. DuVall, referring to the group’s current home, 733 S. Fleishel Ave. “We will also have an ambulatory endoscopy center, which will be the first of its kind in Tyler.” Dr. DuVall said the group hopes the project will be completed some time in the fall. He said it is a “multi-million dollar project” for which no final bids for the interior had been awarded yet. The building will be able to support other procedures, depending on a tenant’s needs, he said. These include catheterization, ambulatory and surgical hospital operations, diagnostics, laboratory, dialysis, ophthalmology, medical offices and other uses. “We may have eye doctors, we may have family practice doctors,” Dr. DuVall said, adding the group wanted to make the uses the center would support broad. “Right now, we really do not know who all we’re going to have.” He said the center is not affiliated with any hospital. Six physicians—Dr. DuVall, Dr. Don Freeman, Dr. Peter Meyers, Dr. Craig Radford, Dr. Kevin Green and Dr. Richard Seidel—make up Digestive Health Specialists. Duvall said although the number and type of future practices in the building is not known the medical community has shown great interest. Dr. DuVall said his group has been looking for a new location for more than 18 months. It had to be located close to the hospitals. “Real estate is really a premium around the medical corridor,” he said. “What makes it such a premium is the parking.” He said the group wanted to put its practice in the former store building not only because of its location but also because of the ample parking. Dr. DuVall said Digestive Health Specialists did not want patients having to use a parking garage. “One of the things was to make it very user-friendly,” he said. “Patients can come in one door to enter the facility and at another door leave the facility and have a car pull you up to both doors.” At first investigation, however, the group almost dismissed the location because of the many different levels of ownership sublease, Dr. DuVall said. Tylerite Martin Heines said his grandfather said former state Sen. Tom Pollard purchased the land—part of a larger tract—on which the building is located in 1935. Heines, who oversees the property for the Pollard family, said the family leases the 5-acre portion of land that includes the building and parking lot to Brookshire Grocery Co., and Brookshire Grocery Co. is subleasing it to this medical group. “One of the things was to make it very user-friendly,” he said. “Patients can come in one door to enter the facility and at another door leave the facility and have a car pull you up to both doors.” At first investigation, however, the group almost dismissed the location because of the many different levels of ownership sublease, Dr. DuVall said. Tylerite Martin Heines said his grandfather said former state Sen. Tom Pollard purchased the land—part of a larger tract—on which the building is located in 1935. Heines, who oversees the property for the Pollard family, said the family leases the 5-acre portion of land that includes the building and parking lot to Brookshire Grocery Co., and Brookshire Grocery Co. is subleasing it to this medical group. “I think a lot of other physicians have looked at it and dismissed it just because of the level of difficulty in working through those layers,” Dr. DuVall said. “We hired a consultant group out of Houston that kind of pushed that through for us over the course of about six months.” Business Editor Greg Junek may be reached at (903) 596-6280 or by e-mail at business@tylerpaper.com.. << Archive