Most healthcare providers looking to build or expand don’t employ an in-house vice president of real estate, design and construction. That’s where ProjX LLC comes in … filling that role and then some.

 

“There are different companies that offer pieces of what we do, but nobody’s really melded it together in the way that we have to offer the breadth of experience and breadth of services that we can,” said Kimberly Fredrickson, ProjX chief executive officer.

 

Based in Nashville, ProjX was launched in 2006 to manage construction and renovation projects primarily in the healthcare space. The firm taps into the expertise of a variety of other companies across the country, bringing them into a project on a contract basis when their particular area of specialty is needed. “We have a broad spectrum of experience that we can tap this way,” she said.

 

With six professionals in its West End office, ProjX is a “virtual company,” according to the firm’s chief development officer, Ira A. Chilton. “We are a heavy knowledge-based company, meaning that on average our experience in design and construction and construction financing exceeds 25 years with our core staff that is employed by ProjX. Because we are a virtual company, we have created a resource link via the Internet, and we act like a much larger company.”

 

Fredrickson and Chilton began working together in 1996, when she joined Davis Stokes Chilton, a master-planning company in which Chilton was a principal. In 1999, both became founding partners in The CFP Group, a Nashville-based healthcare architecture firm with a client roster that included LifePoint Hospitals, National Surgical Hospitals and HealthSouth. One of the company’s first clients was locally headquartered National Nephrology Associates (which was sold in 2004 to Renal Care Group). The company also was involved in rolling out two hospitals and nine surgery centers in the United Kingdom from 2002 to 2007. “That UK project forced us into being a virtual company,” Chilton said. “It’s what really made the light bulb come on for us.”

 

At The CFP Group, Chilton was CEO and Fredrickson was chief financial officer. With ProjX, the two came in as equal partners, but Fredrickson purchased enough of Chilton’s membership percentage to take her to 51 percent, thus affording the business the advantages of woman-owned, minority status. “That’s opening some doors for us,” she said.

 

With its stable of experts, ProjX offers its clients a “shopping list of services,” Fredrickson said. The company serves as the owner’s representative — an extension of the owner shepherding a project through any or all stages of development. Depending on the client’s needs, services include:

“By and large, our clients are providers, are looking to be providers, or are associated with a provider,” Chilton explained. Sometimes the project is still just a concept, and the client is looking to make a case for expansion or new construction. That’s when, for example, ProjX calls in its demographer, an independent contractor.

 

In Groesbeck, Texas, ProjX generated a detailed capital expenditure budget — what Chilton called a “head to toe budget” — in a couple of weeks to help the county jumpstart the project to replace its 75-year-old facility. The budget included all costs, including recommendations that the county float two different kinds of bonds. Pleased with ProjX’s budget work, the local governmental entity retained the firm to manage the project in total, from land acquisition to opening the doors. A similar project will soon break ground in the Texas Panhandle.

 

A high-profile ProjX client is The Little Clinic, which manages walk-in retail clinics. Originally based in Louisville, Ky., The Little Clinic opened its first two clinics in Kroger grocery stores in 2003. In 2007, the company moved its headquarters to Nashville. ProjX has opened more than 100 locations for The Little Clinic. In the last quarter of 2008, ProjX opened 28 clinics in four states. “That shows the intensity of what we can do,” Fredrickson said.

 

Another Nashville client is ASCIRA Partners, a developer and manager of outpatient surgery centers. ASCIRA is chaired by Michael Gould, who has previously founded two other outpatient surgery ventures — Surginet (which became Surgis in 2001) and Ambulatory Resource Centres (which evolved into Symbion as the result of a merger).

 

ProjX has 14 projects on the books now, and the company’s future is “looking rosy for us,” Fredrickson said.

 

The reason why, added Chilton, is because of ProjX’s customized approach to every project. “We’re not giving a cookbook solution,” he said. “We’re matching the experience up to the project.”