The City of Southfield, Michigan, just added another large tenant to one of its high rises. Accretive Health, Inc. will lease about 107,000 square feet of commercial office space in the Travelers Towers II office building. This takes the building to near capacity.
Southfield has been surging in recent years as the city offers enormous amounts of well priced real estate for office rent and central location in Metropolitan Detroit. The area has been underwhelmed with job creation, leaving a large pool of educated workers looking for their opportunity to get into the workforce.
Southfield’s access to M-10, Telegraph Road, I-696, and M-39 make it ideal to commute from any location.
Accretive Health Inc., a Chicago-based hospital revenue-cycle management company, will lease about 107,000 square feet in the Travelers Tower II office building in Southfield.
The company — which Crain’s sister publication Modern Healthcare reported was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange in March for failing to file its 2013 annual report (it later filed it in December) — plans to move into the 339,000-square-foot building over the course of several years, the company said in a statement to Crain’s.
“As Accretive Health rolls out its 2015 strategy, the company has assessed its geographic footprint and is preparing to accommodate projected growth … The company is in the final planning phases and is still assessing how it will fully utilize this space for its future growth needs,” it said.
In 2008, the Michigan Economic Development Corp. awarded Accretive up to $5.4 million in tax incentives to relocate to Detroit and Kalamazoo. At the time, the company said it planned to create up to 650 jobs in the next seven years.
Accretive provided no other details about the deal in its statement and would not answer additional questions.
It’s not known if the company will relocate employees from other locations to Southfield or how many local jobs will be created. The industry standard is approximately 250 square feet per employee. At that rate, there could be 428 employees in the space. It’s also not known what operations the company will house in Travelers Tower.
“Michigan has historically provided, and will continue to provide, Accretive Health with good opportunities to maximize resources closer to customers, increase organizational effectiveness and prepare the company for future expansion,” the statement said.
Crain’s reported in 2011 that Beaumont Health System signed a contract with Accretive to improve revenue-cycle operations that include billing and collections. In 2009, Henry Ford Health System signed a contract with Accretive worth nearly $1 billion.
Accretive is partially owned by St. Louis-based Ascension Health, which is St. John Providence Health’s parent organization.
Accretive currently leases 3,400 square feet in downtown Detroit at 660 Woodward Ave.; about 10,000 square feet for its shared-services center at 5505 13 Mile Rd. near Mound Road in Warren; and 500 square feet in the Southfield Town Center office complex, according to CoStar Group Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based real estate information service.
The building is part of a 790,000-square-foot complex purchased by New York City-based Time Equities Inc. in 2013 for $25.12 million from Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
The lease will bring Travelers Tower II to nearly full occupancy.
Accretive is the second large tenant to recently sign a lease in the tower, built in 1982 at 26533 Evergreen Rd. south of I-696.
Crain’s Detroit: http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20150212/NEWS/150219925/accretive-health-to-move-into-107000-square-feet-in-southfield
