A Seattle-based health care provider has bought a new and unused health clinic and is planning to use it for its own in-patient services beginning in spring 2026.

Aristo Healthcare received two grants in 2022 totaling $5 million from the state Department of Commerce as part of a five-year plan to modernize and transform mental health services in the state and relieve capacity issues at the state’s two large mental health hospitals. The health care provider at the time said it intended to build its own facility, calling it Tri-City Nueva Esperanza.

The company paid $5.5 million in July for the facility at 7319 W. Hood Place in Kennewick built by Salt Lake City-based Sana Behavioral Health in 2021 for a similar purpose – but it never opened.

Aristo did not return a request for comment from the Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business regarding its current plans but state Commerce officials confirmed Aristo is using the grants to open the facility built by Sana.

Sana announced its plans to build the facility in late 2020. The 16,518-square-foot, single-story building just north of the Tri-Cities Cancer Center was to be the second opened by Sana, with the intention of providing in-patient psychiatric care to seniors, though that would not have included dementia care. Sana officials had planned to hire about 44 staff and have patient stays averaging between 10-14 days.

The facility was built by Chervenell Construction and completed by mid-June 2021 at a cost of $10.25 million. It has never housed patients and was offered for sale or lease by GPS Properties LLC in August 2021. Sana’s only other facility, in Prescott, Arizona, has permanently closed as has a behavioral health hospital it managed in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Aristo is already operating a 16-bed intensive behavioral health facility in Renton, which received a $1.96 million grant from Commerce in 2020. The Kennewick facility will house individuals with behavioral health conditions who are being held under 90- or 180-day civil commitment orders.

Lourdes Behavioral Health in Richland, part of Pasco-based Lourdes Health, is the only other in-patient mental health facility in the Tri-Cities and has 32 beds.

Columbia Valley Center for Recovery, currently under construction at the former Kennewick General/Trios hospital in downtown Kennewick and opening in early 2026, will offer in-patient substance abuse and detox services.