Northwest Specialty Hospital has sold its buildings and property to a Milwaukee-based investment management company for $67.5 million, becoming a tenant in the 186,000-square-foot facility the specialty hospital formerly owned. 

Rick Rasmussen, Northwest Specialty Hospital CEO, says most of the providers who started the hospital 20 years ago—many of whom are nearing retirement—decided it was time for most of them to sell their shares.

On August 17, Hammes Partners purchased Northwest Specialty Hospital’s seven buildings and the land under them, located at 1593 E. Polston. 

“We are still physician-owned. We still have the same leadership. The only thing that changed is our landlord,” Rasmussen says.

Hammes Partners plans to assist Northwest Specialty Hospital in expanding its capabilities, he says.  

“Part of their investment is going to be to help us grow,” Rasmussen says. “We’re adding another interventional radiology suite, and we’re adding more parking.”

Northwest Specialty Hospital has plans to expand in North Idaho and into Eastern Washington, Rasmussen says. A new Athol location will open in January. Around mid-2023, the health care organization intends to expand into the Liberty Lake area. 

Rasmussen says annual revenue for Northwest Specialty Hospital is about $250 million. He says the hospital has grown rapidly, especially in the past decade. There are now about 740 employees, up from about 70 in 2014. The hospital expects to see more than 300,000 total patients this year, he says. 

“We’ve added over 15 different service lines in the last eight years,” Rasmussen says. “We’re never going to be a Providence or a MultiCare, but we’re competing to grow.”

Northwest Specialty Hospital was established in 2002 when a group of local providers called Northwest Doctors LLC collaborated with Surgery Partners Inc., which operates surgical facilities at more than 180 locations in the U.S. In 2020, Northwest Specialty Hospital established a new ownership structure with Idaho Falls-based Mountain View Hospital that would allow the Post Falls operation to remain owned and operated by physicians. 

Hammes Partners is an investment management firm that focuses on health care real estate and works on behalf of institutional investors.