Plaza wants city to OK DaVita clinic

The owners of downtown Tacoma’s Pacific Plaza will seek the City Council’s approval tonight to revise its development agreement with the city yet again – this time, to allow a private health clinic serving DaVita employees to occupy a space originally meant for retail.

If the council agrees to modify the agreement and allow the yet-to-be-publicly-named primary care provider to move into the ground-floor space, Pacific Plaza “will be 100 percent full,” said Dan Putnam, a founding member of the development’s ownership group.

“A lot of this really is about putting something in downtown Tacoma that will put some feet on the ground,” Putnam said Monday. “We felt this isn’t an office, it’s a clinic – so there is a public benefit use.”

If approved, the move would also be the second time in as many years that the council has made an exception to its original vision that prioritized bringing new retailers to the former city-owned parking garage property.

Under the public-private partnership, the city helped to secure some $19 million for the project. The original development agreement stated that the building’s ground floor “shall be used for commercial retail activity.”

In late 2009, the council agreed to modify that agreement so the Washington Attorney General’s Office could put offices into Pacific Plaza – a move that drew opposition from many downtown business interests.

In exchange, the development’s owners agreed to share some rent and parking revenues with the city. It also reaffirmed a commitment to lease the rest of the building’s ground floor to retailers.

The latest proposal before the council would require amendments to both the restated development agreement and the lease agreement, allowing for the clinic.

According to an Aug. 12 letter from Thomas Absher, a member of the ownership group, to Mayor Marilyn Strickland, the clinic would provide treatment rooms, X-rays and physical therapy. It would employ as many as 11 full-time workers and serve up to 35 patients daily.

Employees of kidney dialysis company DaVita would be the primary clients, as well as employees’ family members, but clinic memberships would be “offered to other downtown employers and their employees,” the letter states.

During a discussion about the proposal last month, council members raised several questions and generally wondered whether the clinic was the best use for the space. Councilman Marty Campbell asked whether the public would have access and whether approving the project would be premature, with a grocery store slated to open Sept. 7 on Pacific Plaza.

“This is the one spot that can actually benefit from the foot traffic from the grocery store,” Campbell said. “…I hope we’re not cutting off our best opportunity to land (another retailer).”

Putnam, who declined Monday to discuss details about the potential tenant, citing a confidentiality agreement, said his group has searched hard for potential retail tenants for the 2,700-square-foot “Unit 1,” which is Pacific Plaza’s last unoccupied space.

“We did make lots of efforts to contact every retail-type of possibility that existed out there – restaurants, you name it,” Putnam said.

The health care provider came forward unsolicited, he said.

“The word ‘retail’ means a lot of different things to a lot of different people,” Putnam added. “We’re not planning to argue the point, but I think the intent of our development agreement was to enliven the street. This lease agreement does that.”

At least one council member already has thrown his support behind the proposal.

“When we made those agreements with Pacific Plaza, we didn’t have boarded-up storefronts on Pacific Avenue like we do now,” Councilman Spiro Manthou said Monday. “Hopefully, this will help bring retail in those boarded-up storefronts.”

Lewis Kamb: 253-597-8542
lewis.kamb@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/politics