Real Estate Firm Delos Partners with Mayo Clinic to Build Wellness Lab

The Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation has entered an agreement with real estate company Delos to build a new research lab that seeks to come up with “wellness interventions” from studying the association of improved building design and technology with health and wellness, several reports out Tuesday said.

According to MedCityNews, the two companies would construct and jointly operate the facility, named The Well Living Lab, to serve as “a multidisciplinary lab uniquely focused on the interaction between health, wellness and the build environment.”

The report said the lab would be located beside the Mayo Clinic’s Rochester campus. Construction is expected to be finished by April 2015.

The Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal reported that Delos would be presenting its plans for the construction of the lab at the Mayo Transform symposium, citing a report from the Rochester Post Bulletin.

The lab will feature simulated living, working and hotel environments, The Mayo Clinic said in a press release.

“The new WELL Living Lab provides us with an unparalleled opportunity to work with one of the world’s leading medical institutions to drive new, groundbreaking research in the fields of health and well-being,” Delos founder Paul Scialla said in a statement.

“As an engine for discovering and introducing health and wellness innovations to the industry, the lab will be a sought-after resource for companies all over the world to bring their ideas, products and technologies to be tested and researched,” he said.

“Delos has a remarkable vision of how environments can help people optimize their health and well-being. We are excited to partner with Delos in extending our capacity to create health for people where they live and work,” Douglas Wood, M.D., a Mayo Clinic cardiologist and medical director, Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation said.

Delos is a real estate consulting and development firm that is currently dedicated to the construction of wellness buildings. It recently build a new Los Angeles headquarter for the CBRE Group, Inc. 

Health care real estate is a billion dollar industry in the United States. The Savills Medical Real Estate Team, for instance, has been involved in over $4.2 billion worth of deals. Deloitte noted that the niche market is poised for growth due to the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Real estate agents who want to enter the niche segment can benefit from technologies designed by digital media companies like Realbiz Media Group, Inc. RBIZ in promoting themselves and their business.  

RealBiz Media’s Nestbuilder.com, for example, aims to bestow agents control over how they want to run marketing campaigns for their listings. The portal has been launched at a time when the only means for agents to capture leads is to buy them from listing companies and websites.

“Homebuyers are able to create personalized video collections of potential homes to be set-up for review and sharing. Agents can quickly bring their listings to life via RealBiz’s rich video conversion tools, and market properties directly to homeowners and homebuyers in a personalized, customized, entertaining, and engaging format no matter where they are," Realbiz Media President and Chief Revenue Officer Steve Marques said of the platform.