Keeping up with The Woodlands area’s growing health care industry, Shenandoah will soon be home to Global Vision Medical Center, a 65,000-square-foot medical office building.

The four-story structure will be located at the southwest corner of the intersection of Vision Park Boulevard and I-45 and is being developed by California-based Global Building LLC. Jim Vann, senior vice president of corporate services for Moody Rambin, the property’s real estate company, said construction on the building could begin as early as summer or fall and wrap up by late 2019.

“Vision Park [Boulevard] has become basically a medical street,” said Yuri Bouharevich, vice president of Wired International, a Texas real estate firm also working with Moody Rambin. “Pretty much every development on that street houses a medical user, so I would call it a medical hub. We’re really just building onto that.”

Global Vision Medical Center will join other neighboring health care users, including The Woodlands Clinic-Kelsey Seybold, HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital Vision Park, Nexus Specialty Hospital, Aspire Hospital-The Woodlands Imaging and numerous others, all located on Vision Park Boulevard.

The medical center will also be located between Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Medical Center, CHI St. Luke’s Health-The Woodlands Hospital, CHI St. Luke’s Health-Lakeside Hospital, Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands and Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital.

“It’s a great location for somebody’s [medical] practice because they can send their patients just north to St. Luke’s or Houston Methodist or down the road to Memorial Hermann,” Bouharevich said.

Site work on the project is already underway, Vann said; however, Moody Rambin is looking to prelease at least 50 percent of the building prior to beginning construction on the building itself.

“We’re talking to pharmacies, plastic surgeons, radiologists—all types of medical users,” Vann said. “We feel this site is best-suited for medical office space, and we just hope this will provide more medical services to this community, which is growing by leaps and bounds.”

The medical center is Phase 1 of a larger mixed-use development, Global Shenandoah. The roughly 8-acre project will be developed in two phases featuring retail, restaurant, hotel and medical space upon completion. Phase 2 details have not been announced as of press time.

Bouharevich said the office building will be a Class A structure with interior hallways and elevators, pylon signage, surface parking and access from the I-45 frontage road. Depending on the size of the suite a tenant desires, the building could contain anywhere from one to 15 tenants, Vann said.

“Most of the land in The Woodlands is owned by The Woodlands Development Company, so it’s hard to find property that you can purchase and develop there, and even if you do have land in The Woodlands, it’s very restricted,” Bouharevich said. “This is one of the last pieces of land available for a midrise office building in Shenandoah located on the highway.”

Vann said another advantage the location offers is its close proximity to local retail and restaurant options.

The building will be within walking distance to Red Lobster, Outback Steakhouse and Ethan Allen as well as Mia’s Table, a Sleep Number store and a new Starbucks location set to open later this year in the area.

Bouharevich said one characteristic that sets Global Vision Medical Center apart from other similar facilities is it will offer equity ownership positions.

“If you’re a surgeon looking for your own space, you’re probably used to leasing a space and literally just paying a landlord and not getting any sort of return,” Bouharevich said. “But in this building, what’s a beauty and we’re happy to do is offer equity positions. So not only could a surgeon lease the building, but they could also invest in the whole project. They could become part owners of the land and the building.”

Vann said residents can expect Global Vision Medical Center to be complete by late 2019. The project is expected to attract a variety of new medical users including surgeons, specialists and family physicians.