It was planned as a psychiatric hospital in Tacoma. So why is the land headed to sale?
The land for a proposed 105-bed psychiatric hospital in Tacoma has been ordered to be seized and sold to satisfy an earlier $2.8 million default judgment against the project’s developer, court records show.
Tacoma Life Properties LLC started construction on the city’s second behavioral health hospital in January 2022 before the $42 million project stalled several months later amid financial and legal woes, according to Pierce County Superior Court records. Two construction companies sued the developer over nearly $3 million in unpaid invoices for work performed on the site, located near South 19th and Proctor streets.
The court sided with Andersen Construction Co. of Washington and Archer Construction Inc. in October, requiring Tacoma Life Properties — which never appeared in court to answer the lawsuit — to pay up.
With the debt outstanding, the court on March 12 filed an order of sale, setting the stage for the developer’s property to be unloaded at a foreclosure sale and proceeds to be distributed to the two companies to make good on the money they’re owed, court records show.
The developer bought the parcels that comprise the property for $4.1 million in 2018, according to a real estate document. Following the foreclosure sale, it will have a year to reclaim it by paying the owed judgment and all costs incurred during the foreclosure process.
A message left by The News Tribune with Signature Healthcare Services, the parent company behind the project, was not returned.
The court-ordered foreclosure comes four years after the project was approved by the City Council. Only three months before, city lawmakers rejected the hospital due to concerns about concentrating psychiatric services in the city and District 3. Officials changed course to settle a lawsuit from the developer.
Six months after beginning construction, the project reportedly hit a snag. Andersen was notified by Tacoma Life Properties in July 2022 that a majority of the work was being suspended due to a lack of financing, according to the two construction companies’ lawsuit against the developer.
An engineering firm tied to the project through city permitting records declined to comment on the latest legal ruling or the project, which currently doesn’t have an active building permit through the city.
The permit expired last week after Tacoma Life Properties had been granted an extension in December, city spokesperson Maria Lee said. Once a permit has been expired for more than two years, it can no longer be extended but instead must be reapplied for, with the applicant paying for an inspection, according to Tacoma policy.
The project’s certificate of need (CN) from the state’s Department of Health — a required document enabling certain healthcare providers to build certain facilities — remained valid, DOH spokesperson John Doyle said.
“The project is now under monitoring by the CN Program until Signature can demonstrate completion of the project,” Doyle wrote in an email.
The hospital proposed to provide in- and out-patient services down the street from the Wellfound Behavioral Health Center on South 19th Street. Fifteen of the beds were slated to serve minors, according to a 2019 letter from the state health department.
