Heartwood, Bryan County – St. Joseph’s/Candler and Raydient announced today a strategic alliance to create a unique health and wellness initiative in Heartwood at Richmond Hill that will positively impact both Heartwood residents as well as Bryan County residents as a whole.

This alliance brings together two highly successful companies with a shared vision to help families live longer, healthier lives.

Raydient is developing Heartwood, a new mixed-use community in Richmond Hill, GA at Belfast Keller Road on Interstate 95. Heartwood is a place to grow your family, your business dream or your industrial footprint, offering opportunities for education (K-12 school campuses), jobs, recreation, shopping and industry.

It will now offer a significant healthcare infrastructure thanks to the strategic alliance with St. Joseph’s/Candler.

“Part of the mission at St. Joseph’s/Candler is to not only treat illness but to promote wellness,” said Paul P. Hinchey, President & CEO of SJ/C. “We proposed implementing a unique version of our Bē Health & Well-Being lifestyle initiative in the new Heartwood community, one that would be focused on impacting the health of Heartwood residents; while expanding access to other health care services for all residents in the Richmond Hill area.”

The idea dovetailed with the vision Raydient had.

“We aspire to build a community that promotes optimal health,” said Chris Corr, SVP of Real Estate Development of Rayonier, and President of Raydient.  “We conducted our search for the right partner, St. Joseph’s/Candler put forth the Bē Health concept.  Bē Health’s innovative holistic approach and commitment to Heartwood made it an easy decision.”

Features of this alliance

St. Joseph’s/Candler will be adding two key features to Heartwood.

First, is wellness. Bē Health & Well-Being is a health and wellness initiative of St. Joseph’s/Candler that has been enhanced to impact the long-term health and well-being of Heartwood residents.

Residents will have access to all they need to keep their families healthy, right in their own community. To that end, St. Joseph’s/Candler is creating:

• Wellness and exercise classes at The Outfitters at Heartwood, health care lectures, certain screenings and access to other wellness services as needed.
• A dedicated Bē Health Navigator, who will be an onsite health coach that will manage fitness/wellness initiatives as well as serve as a liaison for other health care services offered through St. Joseph’s/Candler. This navigator will guide residents to resources and specialists to improve their overall health and wellbeing.
• St. Joseph’s/Candler has also developed an app that will allow residents and community members to easily sign up for wellness classes, lectures and screenings, plus book an appointment with the Bē Health Navigator.
• It will also incentivize wellness with a loyalty program where users can gain points to redeem for products from SJ/C and eventually other local retailers. This app will evolve in features as the community grows so residents can track their health progress.
• St. Joseph’s/Candler has underwritten the St. Joseph’s/Candler Bē Health & Well-Being Walking Trails. Raydient had a vision to create a property focused on wellness and recreation and incorporated miles of walking and biking trails into the plans. These trails will eventually encompass paths to the schools. Some of the trails are easy and some more challenging so there is something for everyone. The Bē Health Navigator will host a weekly walking club and incorporate various activities into their walks. But the beauty of the trails is that they are available to anyone in Richmond Hill.

Throughout this build-out, St. Joseph’s/Candler will be collecting real data from willing residents to track their wellness.

“We want to track their health care journey and study what works and what other things we might need to add,” Hinchey said. “We want to see if this concept of targeting a specific community has the benefits we expect to achieve. We have a talented group of co-workers at St. Joseph’s/Candler as well as other partners who will be able to parse the data and make improvements over time, and we believe that with this strategic alliance with Raydient, we can influence the health of a whole community for the better.”

The second aspect is health management

St. Joseph’s/Candler is developing a Richmond Hill Campus and has purchased 27 acres from Raydient across the street from The Outfitters at Heartwood. This property will allow SJ/C to grow with the health care needs of both Heartwood and south Bryan County.

• The campus will be built in stages, beginning with a building that will house primary care and urgent care, with space for Specialists. It will also include additional space for our Be Health & Well-Being program, including classroom space for things like diabetes management, childbirth classes, a massage therapy room and consult space for other services that may be needed. This building will be about 15,000 square feet with an estimated cost of about $15 million. We plan to break ground on this building in January of 2023 with the goal to open by February 2024.
• The master plan includes building up to 5 buildings total over the next 10-20 years. As the community grows, St. Joseph’s/Candler can determine the timeline, what services are needed and then build out the property as the Radient population expands. We have planned on being able to provide up to 225,000 square feet of medical office space with 960 parking spaces.

About St. Joseph’s/Candler:

St. Joseph’s/Candler is a 714-bed, Magnet-designated health system for nursing excellence, with a focus on the latest technologies and research. It is anchored by St. Joseph’s Hospital, Candler Hospital plus the new Pooler and Bluffton campuses. Its comprehensive network includes centers of excellence for oncology, cardiovascular, neurosciences, women’s and children’s services, orthopedics, pulmonary medicine and a variety of other disease specialties. SJ/C’s Nancy N. and J.C. Lewis Cancer & Research Pavilion has been selected to be part of the National Cancer Institute’s Community Oncology Research Program. St. Joseph’s/Candler is a not-for-profit health system serving 33 counties in southeast Georgia and three in the South Carolina Low Country and is the largest and only faith-based institution in the region. For more information, visit www.sjchs.org.

About Raydient Places + Properties

Raydient Places + Properties (“Raydient”) masterplans, develops, builds, markets and sells “places and properties” ranging from multi-use communities and industrial parks to rural homesteads and recreational lands.  Raydient is a taxable subsidiary of Rayonier (NYSE:RYN), a leading timberland real estate investment trust with assets located in some of the most productive timber growing regions in the U.S. and New Zealand. When the real estate market demands a higher and better use for a property, our team steps in to transition that timberland for its future purpose. Get to know us at www.raydient.com.

About Heartwood at Richmond Hill
Imagined as the new part of a historic town, inspired by the beauty and durability of the forests, Heartwood is a new community in Richmond Hill, Georgia, consisting of approximately 7,000 acres. Heartwood at Richmond Hill offers a lifestyle that will span the generational needs of people and the ever-evolving needs of business. Whether you are growing a family, growing an entrepreneurial dream, expanding your business footprint, or just looking to mature somewhere that has it all, Heartwood is a place to live, work, and play in one location. Heartwood is being developed by Raydient Places + Properties, a taxable subsidiary of Rayonier Inc., a real estate investment trust. To learn more about Heartwood, visit heartwoodlife.com or email marketing@heartwoodlife.com