Snoqualmie Tribe eyes hospital site

The woodsy campus of Snoqualmie Valley Hospital could be the future site of a new Native American regional health-care facility.

The Snoqualmie Tribe is negotiating with the hospital to buy its 48-acre site for $30 million, hospital officials said Thursday. The property sits near the tribe's new casino, which is slated to open in November.

"We're very close to concluding a purchase-and-sale agreement," said Don Galer, chief financial officer for the hospital.

A public hearing on the sale is scheduled for Jan. 17. The tribe is uncertain how it will develop the property.

Along with offering inpatient services, the tribe wants to integrate Western medicine with traditional Native American customs, said Matt Mattson, tribal administrator. For example, patients would have access to traditional native healing practices and nutritional education that incorporates Native American food, he said. A sweat lodge — a type of sauna used for spiritual and physical healing — could be part of the plan, Mattson added.

"You have to dream big," he said. "This is a big idea, and we're really excited about taking it on."

The tribe secured $330 million in financing from investors last year to help build Casino Snoqualmie. None of that money will go toward the land purchase, Mattson said.

"Our intention is to use casino profits to fund the balance," he said.

The tribe would pay for the land over the course of two years and receive the title at the end of that period, when the hospital relocates, Galer said.

Built in 1983, Snoqualmie Valley Hospital — also known as King County Public Hospital District No. 4 — sits tucked on a hillside off Southeast North Bend Way in Snoqualmie. There is no offramp to the hospital from westbound Interstate 90, and the winding road to the facility doesn't offer easy access for emergency-response vehicles, officials say.

The hospital has endured financial setbacks and two closings during its 25-year history. But last year, hospital officials decided the key to future solvency was to move. They found a more visible spot two miles away — 71 acres at Route 18 and Interstate 90 — and put the existing hospital up for sale.

When a housing developer dropped plans to move forward late last year, the tribe stepped in, Galer said.

The proximity of two health-care facilities can only benefit the community, tribe and hospital officials said.

Hospital CEO Rodger McCollum said there's the potential for shared services.

"We'd be able to attract more specialists, like surgeons and internal-medicine doctors," he said. "There would be more economies of scale."

"We don't want to be competing with Snoqualmie Valley Hospital," Mattson said. "That's not what this is about."

Snoqualmie Valley Hospital is in the throes of change, the latest of which includes plans to stop operating the Lake Wilderness Medical Clinic in Maple Valley by Jan. 31. It is possible another hospital or medical facility may take it over, Galer said.

Officials sought to open the Maple Valley clinic in 2006 as a way to funnel more patients to the hospital; financial forecasts at the time said it would break even after two years, Galer said.

When that didn't happen, "we didn't want to continue to subsidize it," Galer said.

The hospital oversees three other family-practice clinics in North Bend, Fall City and Snoqualmie Ridge. The ridge clinic is thriving and the hospital could see profits this year, McCollum said.

Sonia Krishnan: 206-515-5546 or skrishnan@seattletimes.com