$21.5M Kennebunk medical building deal among top sales for the year

The sale of a Kennebunk medical office building for $21.5 million is the fourth largest commercial real estate transaction so far this year and even back to January 2025, as ranked by Mainebiz’s 2026 Book of Lists. Massachusetts real estate investment and management firm Albany Road-Kennebunk LLC bought the property, a 140,000-square-foot medical office complex on 12.8 acres at 2 Livewell Drive, from Shape Drive Medical Center LLC. Joe Porta and Tim Millett of Porta & Company brokered the transaction. Porta & Co. also has the top two spots in the Book of Lists ranking, with earlier sales of a 144-unit apartment complex at 2 Conway St. in Freeport for $57 million and a 195,000-square-foot class A office property at 100 Middle St. in Portland for $33.8 million. Anchor tenants The Kennebunk property is located within the Livewell Campus and includes 600 on-site parking spaces, elevator service and shared building amenities such as conference rooms and restrooms. Porta and Millett represented both the seller and buyer. The seller, Shape Drive Medical Center LLC, is owned by Atlantic Hospitality, which has its headquarters at 2 Livewell Drive in Kennebunk and is owned by hotelier and entrepreneur Tim Harrington and partners. The property has three anchor tenants — MaineHealth Kennebunk Health Center (formerly known as Southern Maine Health Center), Quest Fitness and Kennebunk Center for Dentistry. There’s a second-floor vacancy of approximately 20,000 square feet of unfinished space in the added wing. The property was on the market for about a month. “We got multiple interested parties and were negotiating with three parties pretty quickly,” said Millett. The facility is in excellent condition, and the anchor tenants are clinical and have long-term leases. “Those ingredients, combined with a low-cost basis, provide a very sturdy floor with room for upside,” said Porta. The buyer Albany Road Real Estate Partners is a private equity real estate firm that invests in the Northeast and Sunbelt regions, across a range of tenant profiles and product types, although it has historically focused on the industrial (warehouse, distribution, flex and R&D) and office (medical, suburban and flex) sectors. Based in Dedham, Mass., it has offices in Nashville, Dallas and Denver. Albany Road previously worked with Porta & Co. on a complex off-market transaction that closed earlier this year, with the $33,823,722 sale of 100 Middle St. in Portland that was tied to a new lease for a major tenant and a construction loan for renovations. When Porta & Co. brought the Kennebunk property to Albany Road’s attention, it made sense, said Tyler Savonen, a vice president and managing director at Albany Road responsible for leading acquisition efforts in the Northeast. “We have a long history with medical office product and adding more medical product to our existing portfolio is one of our main focuses right now,” said Savonen. The Kennebunk property is the first one in Maine added to a medical asset portfolio accumulated in New England and upstate New York since 2020, he said. Upgrades Close to $3 million in capital improvements will start with upgrades to the exterior, signage and parking lot. “We love this type of medical campus asset because it lends itself well to medical tenants,” he said. “They want to be in a space where differentiating medical practices drive patient activity to the overall building. It leads to long-term ‘stickiness’ for the tenancy. So the more we can do to improve the look, the feel and the building flexibility, the better.” The second-floor vacancy was part of the deal’s upside, he said. A portion is finished already and the seller has office space there with a short-term leaseback. “We’ll use our experience in managing medical build-outs, such as this one, to create a flexible vacancy that will lend itself to any breakdown for potential tenants,” he said. Albany Road’s acquisitions are financed through private equity. Additional funding for the Kennebunk deal came from Boston-based Beacon Bank. “It was an absolute pleasure working with Porta and Co. and the seller.  Both groups made the transaction an easy and efficient one from day one,” said Savonen. Earlier this year, Millett and Porta brokered the $2.35 million sale of a single-tenant 10,400-square-foot pediatrics medical office building leased by MaineHealth, at 3 Shape Drive in Kennebunk, a couple of blocks from 2 Livewell Drive. Editor’s note: Stephanie Meagher, head of research for Mainebiz parent company New England Business Media, contributed to this report.