Building on Success

When Sandra and James Hoskin were leasing a small retail space in front of a Houston hotel in 1987, their landlord evicted them. He was selling the property to a buyer who needed the space.

Vowing never to lease again, the co-owners of American Medical Equipment soon began property-hunting. This was the late '80s, when “real estate wasn't moving at all,” Sandra recalls. But the stale market ultimately worked to the couple's advantage when they found a rundown piece of real estate — with enormous potential.

“The owner really wanted to get rid of it,” Sandra says, adding that he actually dropped the price $100,000 and was willing to finance the purchase himself.

The area had trash on the streets and relatively light traffic, “but it didn't take long for that to change,” she says.

A few blocks away stood the outskirts of the Texas Medical Center, today one of the largest employers in Houston. The center had yet to expand toward the property, “but we knew the land would increase in value,” Sandra says.

They were right. The land remains the last privately owned acre within the medical center complex. It sits on a major thoroughfare, and the medical center's parking lot surrounds the Hoskins' property, on which stands a new 30,000-square-foot building housing 12,000 square feet of retail space.

Growing with the Business

For its first 16 years on the property, the HME company survived in half the space. But as the company grew and added product lines, eventually “there wasn't any place to put them,” Sandra explains.

Many customers also found it difficult to reach the space. Grandfathered into ADA compliance because of its age, the original building had three steps leading to the front door. Wheelchair users had to enter from the bay doors in the warehouse behind the retail showroom. Even the restroom wasn't handicap-accessible.

So last year, the Hoskins “decided to bite the bullet and build a new place,” Sandra says. Because the couple owns the property and leases it back to the business, a new, bigger building meant “we were building assets, and [we] didn't have to worry about having to move.” American Medical has now been on the same acre for 17 years, she adds, so “everybody knows where we are.”