MBK Senior Living, an Irvin, Calif.-based company, has bought Northpointe Retirement Community for about $15 million from SL Start LLC, of Spokane, and several other investors. The transaction represents the end of a decade of retirement center management for SL Start.


Northpointe has annual revenues of more than $4 million, says Carl Knepler, MBKs vice president of sales and marketing.


The facility, located at 1110 E. Westview Court, was the last holding of SL Starts StartCommunities division, says Rick Colliton, president of SL Start. He says the company will focus more on its disability services, especially work it does with children, from now on. StartCommunities represented about 20 percent of the companys workload, Colliton says, but its a very different business from the bulk of the companys work.


We just want to get focused, Colliton says.


SL Start also recently sold to MBK the 160-unit Harbor Crest Retirement Community, at 3117 E. Chaser Lane, in Spokane.


In addition to its property holdingsincluding Northpointe and Harbor CrestSL Start had managed 11 retirement complexes in Washington, Nevada, and Arizona over the past 10 years.


For the residents of the 80 independent- and assisted-living apartments and 30 Alzheimers apartments, and the roughly 70 employees at Northpointe, it will be a seamless change, says Danielle Morgan, MBKs vice president of operations.


It will be the same as far as services offered, Morgan says. Its a well-run community.


MBK Senior Living is part of MBK Real Estate Ltd., of Irvine, Calif., and is owned by Mitsui USA, the largest subsidiary of Mitsui & Co., of Tokyo, Japan. The company owns and operates four other retirement communities in California, and it plans to acquire additional retirement communities in Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Idaho, and Nevada, Knepler says. With the workers at the Northpointe facility, which has about 70 employees, MBK now employs about 420 people overall.


We would like to get to be around 20 to 30 communities in the western United States. Currently, we have six and are looking at purchasing two more in the next six months, he says. Knepler says that the company hopes to own 20 to 30 retirement properties in about two years.


Northpointe has a high occupancy rate, with just one apartment open right now, he says, which fits in with the criteria the company considers for acquisitions.


Contact Jeanne Gustafson at (509) 344-1264 or via e-mail at jeanneg@spokanejournal.com.