Construction continues on a 200,000-square-foot, $140 million medical campus at Rock Row in Westbrook on Tuesday. Completion of the project is now slated for early next year, about nine months later than initially planned. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

Developers of the mixed-use Rock Row complex in Westbrook are back on track, building a $140 million medical campus now expected to be completed in early 2025 – about a year later than initially planned.

The medical campus broke ground in September 2022 and was slated to open in May of this year, but it ran into financing challenges along the way, said Josh Levy, co-founding principal of the Waterstone Properties Group, based in Needham, Massachusetts.

“We did have a delay,” Levy said Wednesday. “There were some economic headwinds, but we got past that.”

The 200,000-square-foot medical campus, including a five-story building and a two-story building, is almost fully leased, Levy said, and plans are moving forward to complete the $700 million build-out of the 110-acre Rock Row complex by 2030.

Tenants of the medical campus will include New England Cancer Specialists, Saco Bay Physical Therapy, Plastic & Hand Surgical Associates, Rayus Radiology of Spectrum Healthcare Partners and the Dempsey Center.

New England Cancer Specialists, an affiliate of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, plans to consolidate two existing practices in Scarborough within 40,000 square feet at Rock Row. Its offices in Kennebunk and Topsham would remain open.

“While we had hoped to be at Rock Row already, we understand that major development projects come with plenty of opportunities for delay,” said Claire Cote, the chief operations officer for New England Cancer Specialists. “Our needs certainly add some complexity to the project as well.”

Cote said New England Cancer Specialists plans to move its medical oncology and infusion clinic from Scarborough to Rock Row by the end of January 2025, followed by its high-risk and surgery clinic in April and its radiation oncology suite by the end of June.

A MAJOR DEVELOPMENT

Rock Row is a 110-acre commercial and residential development at a former quarry off Main Street (Route 25) on the Westbrook-Portland line, near Exit 48 of the Maine Turnpike (Interstate 95).

An artist’s rendering of the medical offices under construction at Rock Row in Westbrook. The 200,000-square-foot campus is almost fully leased, according to the developer, Waterstone Properties Group. Courtesy of Waterstone Properties Group

It includes a shopping area anchored by a Market Basket supermarket that opened in 2022 and now attracts 3.3 million visitors annually and regular customers from two hours away, Levy said.

It also includes Quarryside, an event space and beer garden with a children’s playground and a large stage for live music, outdoor films and other programs. At the center of the project is a 400-foot-wide quarry that is 300 feet deep and filled with water.

Four medical suites totaling 50,000 square feet remain available for lease on the medical campus, Levy said. But leasing interest is so strong, he said, that Waterstone may build an additional 200,000 square feet of medical office space in a future phase of Rock Row’s development.

The developers are courting various medical providers, practices and specialists as future tenants, including pharmacies, primary care, orthopedics and ambulatory surgery, he said.

The next phase of development at Rock Row, expected to start construction a year from now, will include two apartment projects totaling 450 units, 100,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space, a 117-room Element Hotel by Marriott, a movie theater, office space and green space, Levy said.

Workers in the main entrance of the five-story building that is part of the medical campus at Rock Row in Westbrook on Tuesday. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

When completed in four to five years, Rock Row would include 2.7 million square feet of floor space and be worth about $700 million, with 1,400 apartments or condos and two hotels, he said. It would generate an estimated $18 million in annual property taxes and $1.7 billion in total economic output.

At full build-out, the complex would provide 8,400 full-time jobs with annual salaries totaling $452 million, he said. The initial 200,000-square-foot medical campus alone is expected to provide 550 health care jobs with starting salaries averaging $103,000 annually.

CONNECTING WITH NATURE

Designed by Page, an international architectural and engineering firm, the medical campus is being created to connect patients and providers with the surrounding natural environment, both indoors and outdoors, Levy said.

“We’re trying to make it less about sick care and more about health care,” he said.

The project includes the restoration of Nason Brook, an urban impaired stream, with guidance from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, Levy said.

The 400-foot wide quarry that is at the center of the 110-acre Rock Row complex. Build-out of the $700 million project, which will include 1,400 apartments or condos and two hotels, is expected to be completed by 2030. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

The campus will include a 2-acre “healing garden” with a butterfly exhibit, water features, hydroponic vegetable patch, quiet meditation and gathering spaces, and walking trails connected to the wider Portland Trails system.

The garden also will feature two outdoor “infusion patios,” where patients of New England Cancer Specialists can receive chemotherapy treatments year round.

Cote, chief operations officer, said New England Cancer Specialists likes the idea of bringing nature indoors, “but we also wanted to explore how we could take cancer treatment outdoors.”

Leadership at the Dempsey Center also expressed understanding for the moving delay.

“The Rock Row medical campus is a perfect match for us to be able to reach and serve more people,” said Christine Penney, spokesperson for the Dempsey Center, which provides no-cost cancer care and support to patients and their loved ones.

Founded by actor Patrick Dempsey in 2008, the center is headquartered in Lewiston and has a second location in South Portland. It also provides services online to 32 states and four countries.

The South Portland branch would move to a 15,000-square-foot space at Rock Row, more than doubling its size, Penney said. In 2023, the center served 2,734 people, up from 1,463 in 2021. The latest tally included about 1,400 people from Cumberland and York counties.

“Unfortunately,” she said, “cancer rates continue to climb and so does demand for our services.”

The Dempsey Center will hold open houses when it moves to Rock Row early next year, she said.