MaineHealth to invest $70M to create orthopedic hub in South Portland

An illustration shows a building with a driveway and a person.

Rendering/ Courtesy MaineHealth MaineHealth is planning to build a 14,000-square-foot orthopedic surgery center as part of an orthopedics hub in South Portland.

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By Laurie Schreiber

MaineHealth, the state's largest health care system, will develop an orthopedic care hub in South Portland that will bring together clinical services and providers that are now spread throughout the area.

To make the hub a reality, the organization paid $20 million for a three-story, 122,042-square-foot Class A office building at 300 Southborough Drive in South Portland. The site, on 19 acres, has 635 parking spaces.

Tom Moulton and Katie Breggia of the Dunham Group represented the seller, Metro 300 LLC, and Mark Malone of Malone Commercial Brokers represented MaineHealth in the transaction.

An aerial view shows a building and parking lot.

Photo / Courtesy The Dunham Group

Renovations in the existing building could start next year.

$70M investment

Another $30 million will go toward renovations at 300 Southborough Drive to bring together MaineHealth’s orthopedic specialty practices. And an investment of around $20 million is planned to build a freestanding orthopedic surgery center on the acreage, Kelly Elkins, the organization’s COO, told Mainebiz.

With the property purchase, total investment will be about $70 million.

“The building allows us to bring those clinical practices together to create a consolidated hub for orthopedics,” said Elkins. “And the property is large enough that we’re also able to build a freestanding orthopedic center.”

The project is earmarked in the organization’s capital funding budget, which utilizes operating cash flow and occasional borrowing. MaineHealth’s philanthropy team is also seeking donor support to help lower the overall cost of care.

New construction

MaineHealth was already leasing 32,000 square feet in the building for administrative functions. Other tenants lease 22,000 square feet, leaving 67,000 square feet that’s vacant.

Designs and permitting are being finalized for the freestanding building. The 14,000-square-foot MaineHealth Orthopedic Surgery Center will have four operating rooms, two procedure rooms, 16 pre- and post-op bays and on-site sterile processing.

The design would increase the number of operating rooms in the outpatient setting, streamline processes and support increased volume of procedures.

An aerial view looks down on a building and a parking lot.

Photo/ Courtesy MaineHealth

The left side of the aerial shows where the surgical center will be located.

“Our goal is to get construction moving by the end of 2025, so that we’re able to bring it online and into operation by the beginning of 2027,” said Elkins.

Renovations

MaineHealth is also in the midst of starting the design phase for bringing orthopedic practices to the existing building.

“It will require some renovation of the administrative space we leased,” she said.

The organization needs to find a new home for the administrative services that are now there, and also wants to better understand the plans of existing tenants and how long they might stay. Any new vacancies that arise will inform the renovation plan.

Renovations could start in the spring or summer of 2026, she said.

The building is large enough that it might accommodate other clinical services in addition to orthopedic, she added.

Ortho hub

Orthopedic services have been spread across Greater Portland for years. Some of that is due to the acquisition of formerly independent practices that remained at their original locations. In other cases, the organization has built up specialty orthopedic services at available locations.

The hub allows the organization to bring all aspects of the specialty together, not just the clinics but also support services such as physical therapy and imaging.

The co-location of sub-specialties and support services has benefits for patients, she notes. Patients who have a sports injury, say, might begin with a medical provider, then move on to surgical intervention at another location, with imaging provided at a third site, all requiring separate appointments and wait times. The hub would provide integrated access to services and would allow providers to collaborate on cases that require multiple sub-specialties.

The hub is expected to increase orthopedic patient capacity and to decompress demand on MaineHealth’s other surgery capabilities.

The plan has been in the works for the last 18 months. The project team looked at other locations for either new construction or renovation of an existing property. As it turned out, 300 Southborough Drive ticked all the boxes.

“We’ll be creating a campus and a center of excellence destination for orthopedic care,” said Elkins.