The former Polyclinic facility
There will be no emergency pause in the legislative process around funding the planned $56 million Broadway Crisis Care Center. Officials Wednesday said time is already on the side of answering public safety concerns and putting important new resources in place before the center’s planned opening at Broadway and Union in 2027.
Questions about millions of dollars to be paid to a real estate firm intermediary in the sale agreement also need to be answered.
But there is urgency for people struggling with mental health in the city. “There are very few places in King County they can walk into. Because of this, they are suffering in our streets,” committee member and King County Executive candidate Girmay Zahilay said Wednesday before the votes.
Wednesday, the King County Council’s budget committee approved a raft of ordinances to set up the fund that will pay for the acquisition and operation of the new levy-powered mental health crisis center at Broadway and Union part of a planned $1.25 billion network of five facilities across the county.
The votes keep the process around the planned center on track as key deadlines arrive in the purchase agreement with UnitedHealth Group’s Optum subsidiary. The county’s Department of Community and Human Services said previously a purchase and sale agreement was put in place for the former Polyclinic facility in January with hopes of closing the deal by the end of summer.
CHS reported here on a call for a pause on the legislation from a group of area property owners and businesses.
Wednesday’s votes followed a public comment session dominated by the concerns raised by the group around public safety at the planned center near Seattle University and just a few blocks from the private Seattle Academy middle and high schools.
Questions were also raised about the project’s outreach process and a millions of dollar fee being paid to a real estate firm in the middle of the dealings.
Wednesday, officials made assurances during Wednesdays proceedings around public safety and outreach in the shape of an approved proviso amendment from King County Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda she says will require the county to live up to the City of Seattle’s conditional requirements for the project including a Seattle Police Department review of public safety conditions around the proposed facility and the formation of a new citizen advisory committee to oversee the center.
CHS reported here in August on the letter of conditional support from Mayor Bruce Harrell for the project. In the letter, Harrell says the county and a yet to be announced operator of the center must partner with the Seattle Police Department to assess the former Polyclinic building and its surroundings for safety, execute a “safe operations plan for the building and the surrounding exterior spaces, including public sidewalks and other publicly accessible spaces,” and enter into a Good Neighbor Agreement with the city that “obligates the provider to meet certain safety and disorder standards to be negotiated with the provider.”
Wednesday, Mosqueda said her approved amendment that creates a proviso on the center’s funding cements the county’s commitments to the issues raised in the mayor’s letter.
“We have a collective responsibility to do this right,” Mosqueda said, adding that the full process around outreach and public safety elements could not have started until the city’s requirements were formally delivered — a step she would like to see handled earlier in the process as the county moves forward on opening the other centers in the network.
CHS Broadway Crisis Care Center Timeline
Approved by county voters in 2023, the levy was planned to raise as much as $1.25 billion through 2032 to fund creation of the five crisis care centers and increase mental health services in the county.
In addition to the county buying and owning the properties, the levy will provide companies like Connections that runs the first center in the network in Kirkland access to operations funding plus $2 million annually “in workforce funding to support, strengthen, and recruit their workforce.”
The Crisis Centers must provide 24/7 walk-in care, 23-Hour Observation Units for patients brought in by police “to receive immediate care to stabilize and stay for up to 23 hours,” and “crisis stabilization beds” where individuals can stay for up to 14 days “to receive focused behavioral health treatment.”
As they talked through the need behind the new centers, councilmembers also said they were trying to be responsive to constituents in moving the plan forward, pointing out that more than 70% of Seattle voters and 80% of District 3 voters approved the 2023 levy.
Meanwhile, committee chair Rod Dembowski focused on a $10 million “assignment fee” in the purchase agreement According to the agreement, Guntower Capital is slated to receive about 20% of the sale price from the levy dollars. In addition to reportedly being involved in the financing of the crisis center deal, the Guntower development firm has also been busy in the neighborhood planning a seven-story mixed-use development at E Olive Way and Denny.
“A one year flip for $10 million? The intermediary got a really good deal,” Dembrowski said as he asked county officials to more closely scrutinize the deal.
Assignment fees are typically associated with wholesale real estate transactions involving multiple properties and can represent a major, excise tax-free windfall for intermediaries.
Formed in 2017, Guntower Capital includes Jonathan Slavin of Newmark Realty Capital, and Chris Langer and Joseph Razore of the Broderick Group, according to state filings.
Guntower has not responded to CHS’s inquiry about the purchase agreement.
Dembrowski said Wednesday that, while the fiscal elements were now moving forward in the legislative process, the committee’s decision to vote on the ordinances “without recommendation” reflected that there is more time needed to sort out issues like the assignment fee before the full council votes on the funding.
The ordinances are slated to come before the full council in early October.
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