Children's Installs New Large "Emergency" Sign At Former Wells Fargo Bank Location

Children's Hospital installed a new "Emergency" on July 18th, replacing the Wells Fargo Bank sign.  

Children's purchased the building in January of this year and Wells Fargo Bank moved last September to the former Tully's location at Five Corners.  

Todd Johnson, Vice President, Facilities and Supply Chain, told the Laurelhurst Blog Staff:

As you know, Seattle Children’s purchased the former Wells Fargo branch after the bank moved to its new Five Corners location. We painted and made some minor improvements to the building. 

It is currently leased to Sellen Construction Company for use as a field office. The basement is used by Children’s as a storage location and future office. 

We made the decision to repurpose the former bank monument sign to help families locate our emergency department. This will be especially important after we begin construction of our new Forest B wing late next fall.  

tI hink it will be good for the neighbors as well because this sign, in addition to others that are being added, will help drivers get directly to the ED without any wrong turns or inadvertent trips into the neighborhood. We shared the idea of reusing the bank sign with members of our Citizens Standing Advisory Committee at our June meeting and got agreement that it would be helpful.

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. 

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.

Children’s also still owns one single family houses along NE 45th Street, out of the eight they purchased in 2007 and 2008, during the construction of the Mary Gates Ambulatory Care building and Whale Garage. The home, Todd said, is "occupied by a long term tenant and we will not be offering it for sale at this time."  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.