Developers Integrate Health Care Into Central American Projects
posted in News & Publications
By KEVIN BRASS
Published: August 28, 2010
Forget golf courses and fancy spas. The hot amenity for second-home resorts in Central America these days is a medical facility.
“People are asking for it,” said Kevin Fleming, who has included a 40-bed clinic in plans for Seaside Mariana, a 923-acre, or 374-hectare, project he is building on the coast of Nicaragua. “We’ve seen a real shift in consumer response.”
With second-home sales sluggish, an array of developers in the region are planning health care tie-ins, from Botox clinics to assisted living centers for retirees.
“In every development we have a say in, we’re promoting the idea of including a medical facility,” said Bill Clover, president of Panorama International, a consultancy with headquarters in San Antonio, Texas.
One of those projects is Playa Secreta, a resort with a marina, cruise ship dock, golf courses and more than 2,000 residential units now under development in El Salvador. Plans call for a clinic or small hospital on the grounds. “Developers are looking for an edge to attract people,” Mr. Clover said. “They are also aware of the aging buyer in the residential market.”
This is new territory for developers of Central American properties. While many hotels in the region promote packages tied to health treatments and weight loss programs, only a handful include a medical facility on site.
That is a contrast to countries like Thailand and India, which have well-established medical tourism industries, primarily catering to Europeans. But the United States — the key driver in the Central American market for second homes — is only now embracing the concept.
With health care costs rising, 1.6 million Americans are expected to leave the United States for some form of medical treatment by 2012, up from 750,000 in 2007, according to Deloitte, which tracks the industry.
The cost of care in Central America and Mexico is at least 25 percent to 40 percent less than in the United States, says Paul H. Keckley, executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions.
But the trend could slow if more insurance companies decide not to cover procedures performed overseas, Mr. Keckley said. And there is little solid evidence that medical services can sell vacation villas.
“We haven’t been able to translate demand for health and wellness into second home demand,” said Chad Martin, global research analyst with E360, a North Carolina company that regularly surveys buyers of second homes.
Still, developers in Central America are embracing the concept, eager for any way to jump-start sales. Last year a discussion about how to integrate medical tourism into developments was one of the best attended sessions of the annual Central America Tourism and Hotel Investment Exchange, said James E. Burba, president of Burba Hotel Network, the California company that produced the event for developers and investors.
In the past, medical tourism did not surface as an opportunity for developers “because regular real estate was so strong,” Mr. Burba said.
In many ways, medical facilities are a natural fit for tropical resorts. Patients can convalesce in style; retirees can live inexpensively in an exotic location, without worrying about the availability of medical care.
From a business standpoint, a health care facility attached to a second-home project can attract local citizens and expatriate residents, serving as a hedge against the ebbs and flows of the tourism market. A health care component can also make a project more appealing to lenders, some of whom are wary of financing vacation-home developments.
Larry Foster, a consultant based in Mazatlán, Mexico, is helping developers convert projects once planned as second homes into assisted living centers. “There are a ton of condominium projects in Mexico that are half-finished that would lend themselves to retrofitting,” Mr. Foster said.
Developers are also trying to innovate, targeting different niches in the medical treatment market.
On the Placencia peninsula of Belize, managers at the Villas at Cocoplum are planning to build a clinic offering an experimental migraine headache treatment. Patients would pay a minimum of $5,000 per treatment and could rent condos in the project, which also offers waterfront units for sale at $300,000 to $400,000, marketing prospectus shows.
“It’s geared toward a higher-end client and a nice complement to a high-end condo project,” said Boris Mannsfeld, the developer of the project, who lives in Belize.
Mr. Mannsfeld has formed a new company, International Wellness Resorts, to develop “wellness centers” with resorts. “People are seeking these kinds of state-of-the-art treatments,” said Mr. Mannsfeld, who worked in real estate in Colorado before starting the Belize project in 2006.
Many of the planned medical facilities are designed to market treatments that have not been approved for use in other countries.
“Clinical trials in the U.S. are prohibitively expensive,” said Russ Allen, the chief executive of Empowered Medical, a New York marketing agency.
His company is helping to promote a clinic that offers an alternative cancer treatment in conjunction with Valle Escondido, a retirement development in the hills of Boquete, Panama. There, spa rooms are being converted into recovery rooms and construction of a standalone clinic is expected to begin in January.
“This is a very efficient way to do something like this,” Mr. Allen said.
In Nicaragua, Mr. Fleming hopes to form a partnership with a university or an established U.S.-based hospital to build his clinic in the Seaside Mariana project. It is planned for a parcel near the rear of the development, not far from the Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course and the hotel to be operated by the Wyndham Hotels and Resorts.
He expects the clinic to attract the type of older buyers who plan to live in the development for extended periods, not just short-term visits. “There’s a huge demographic out there and we can’t afford to lose them,” Mr. Fleming said.
