Though the land for a proposed psychiatric hospital did not go to a new owner via a sheriff’s sale this summer, a timeline for restarting the project remains unclear.
The News Tribune this week reached out to local and state officials, as well as representatives of California-based Signature Healthcare Services, for a status update on the long-proposed facility.
Signature has been dealing with issues making headlines at one of its Southern California sites, including a multi-million dollar payout in one case in July and separately seeking restoration of full admission privileges at the same site this month.
In June, the Tacoma property, near South 19th and South Proctor streets, was on track for a sheriff’s sale previously ordered to collect on construction debt.
That sale was canceled, according to a June 26 court filing in the debt collection case in Pierce County Superior Court.
A notice in the court docket from the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department stated that the June 28 sale was canceled at “the request of the judgment creditor’s attorney.”
Attorneys for the construction firms involved, Anderson Construction and Archer Construction, did not respond to request for comment, including whether payment for debt had been received.
County records show different lien filings tied to the site remain in place.
Meanwhile, development of the 105-bed facility is tied to the state Department of Health, which issued Signature a Certificate of Need for the proposed facility in 2019.
On Wednesday, a state DOH media representative told The News Tribune via email in response to questions that the Certificate of Need remains in place, following the cancellation of the sheriff’s sale.
“The Certificate of Need program inquired with Signature whether the information regarding the sale was accurate, and Signature provided documentation that the sale was canceled by the court,” Frank Ameduri, public information officer for state DOH, said via email.
“For CN purposes, Signature is compliant with their issued certificate,” he added. “Signature demonstrated continuous site control and is continuing to move forward with their construction.”
Maria Lee, media representative for the city, told The News Tribune in response to questions that the primary building permit had expired. The last permit filings found in the city’s permit portal date back to the summer 2022.
“The City has had communication with the applicant since 2022 on various things: expired permit, permit extensions, site erosion control, inspections, updates on projects, etc,” Lee said via email in response to questions.
She referred further questions to a Signature representative at the company’s Corona, California, base, who as of Thursday had not responded.
A representative listed with the Signature-affiliated Troy, Michigan-based LLC that owns the Tacoma property also did not respond to a request for an update.
Elsewhere, Signature has continued to develop new hospitals, among them the first behavioral health facility to be built in Northern California since the late 1980s.
The Sacramento Bee in January 2022 reported that Signature had opened the 117-bed psychiatric hospital in Sacramento.
That same year, a Signature executive told Behavioral Health Business, an online industry monitor site, that the company had faced workforce shortages and challenges with material costs.
Legal fights here, elsewhere
Signature’s initial CN request for the Tacoma site was denied in early 2016 in favor of a separate request entered for Wellfound Behavioral Health, just a few blocks east on South 19th Street.
A settlement agreement was later reached, clearing the way for the second hospital’s approval from state DOH.
The land-owning LLC affiliated with Signature later won its case against the city challenging the site’s rezoning process.
Site work was later halted, and the LLC was sued by the two construction companies in June 2023 over unpaid debt.
According to the lawsuit, Tacoma Life Properties notified Anderson Construction in July 2022 that “it was suspending the majority of the work on the parcel due to a lack of financing for the Project,” although both contractors performed authorized work after that time.
The construction firms were later awarded a $2.8 million default judgment against the site developer.
The privately held psychiatric hospital company also has been involved in a decade-long case in California over an ex-employee’s sexual misconduct at its Vista Del Mar facility in Ventura, California, as well as seeking restoration of involuntary admissions privileges at the site.
In July, Ventura (California) County Star reported that Signature and the hospital had reached agreement for payment of $2.36 million in damages in the civil case. According to the newspaper, the hospital and Signature have already paid approximately $4.4 million to satisfy their portions of a 2019 jury award in the case.
In a separate case, the newspaper reported on Sept. 8 that Ventura County and Vista Del Mar had reached an agreement that would ultimately restore involuntary admissions. The admissions had been paused since last fall over reported deficiencies. Involuntary admissions account for about half of that hospital’s admissions, the newspaper reported.
Signature, founded in 2000, operates 19 freestanding acute behavioral health hospitals across five states, according to its website. The Tacoma site, if constructed, would be the company’s first facility in Washington state.
Tacoma News Tribune archives contributed to this report.
