Wells Fargo Bank Sold To Children's Hospital And One More Hospital Owned Home Sold

Children’s  Hospital has purchased the building that formerly housed Wells Fargo, on the 4500 block of 40th Avenue NE.

Todd Johnson, Vice President, Facilities and Supply Chain, told the Laurelhurst Blog Staff that the purchase was completed on January 12 and added:

Like the Gema Mae Apartments next door, the building will remain in essentially its current form for the foreseeable future.  We are currently working on some minor improvements to the interior and exterior and will then sign a lease for the property with an office user.

Last year Children's Hospital purchased the Gema Mae Apartments,  twelve unit fourplex apartments, built in the 1950’s. directly across from the Hospital Emergency Room and behind the old Wells Fargo location.  The Hospital made improvements to the apartments, including painting and bringing the building up to code. According to this website, it was purchased for $4,500,00.00.

At that time, the Laurelhurst Blog asked Todd if the Hospital was looking to buy the Wells Fargo Bank building, when the Bank was moving to the former Tully's location near Federal Express.

Todd said "We will investigate a purchase of the bank property because of its location so close to our campus and the Gema Mae Apartments. Like the apartments, the site is subject to existing zoning and is not included in the hospital’s MIMP."

Children’s also still owns one single family houses along NE 45^th Street, out of the eight they purchased in 2007 and 2008, during the construction of the Mary Gates Ambulatory Care building and Whale Garage. 

In 2013 five of the homes were sold. At the time, the hospital approached homeowners to sell their homes and some homeowners contacted the hospital about the sales which were purchased "at the then-market value," Todd told the Laurelhurst Blog.

Todd added that Children's did make known its willingness to purchase immediately adjacent homes.

He said: "The sales were also probably motivated by unknowns related to Children's proposed Major Institutions Master Plan and the impacts that it could have had in its pre-Laurelon Terrace state, from information given to him by Ruth Benfield, who was the "Children's executive over facilities at the time of the purchases."  

In 2013 five of the homes were sold. 

Another home was recently sold at 4323 NE 45th Street.  And the last hospital owned home Todd said is "occupied by a long term tenant and we will not be offering it for sale at this time."

Last March, Children's also purchased the Center for Spiritual Living (CSL)  for $16,992,850.  It sits on 4.4 acre s with a  50,000-square foot building and is located about a mile north of the campus on Sand Point Way NE.

The site is zoned residential but has a covenant placed on the deed limiting the uses to religious, educational and recreational purposes.

Todd told the Laurelhurst Blog Staff that Children’s will house its educational activities at the CSL location.

For more information go here.