A local nonprofit wants to buy a Kennewick park to build a new $6.5 million administration building. 

But the city hasn’t yet decided if it’s ready to give up the green space.

Tri-Cities Chaplaincy wants to consolidate its services in a new office in the nearly 3-acre Yelm Park, located adjacent to the nonprofit’s Hospice House and Cork’s Place Kids Grief Center at 2108 W. Entiat Ave., Kennewick.

The nonprofit began looking into the possibility at the beginning of the year, said Zoe Diaz, Chaplaincy’s chief operations officer. 

Work had just wrapped up on a $3.5 million renovation of its Hospice House, a facility that provides respite care and serves hospice patients. Diaz said that the process brought the organization’s administrative needs into focus. 

At the same time, the city of Kennewick was in the process of doing a parks review, Diaz said, and the nearby Yelm Park was placed on a list to monitor – meaning that it could potentially be sold. 

Public comments

The Kennewick City Council held a public hearing Oct. 6 to consider declaring Yelm Park as surplus property before it could negotiate with a buyer. 

The park sees about 11,000 adult visits per year, city officials said during the meeting, and currently some T-ball games are programmed there. 

The park land was initially donated to the city by the nearby Kennewick First Lutheran Church at 418 N. Yelm St., which also leases the Hospice House land to Chaplaincy.

During the public hearing, JJ Dygert, the church’s pastor, said the church has a “long history of partnership with the Hospice House” and is very community-oriented. The congregation uses the park for youth groups and other activities, he said, and “it’s important that we continue to have that green space in that neighborhood. To the west of us is very low-income housing, there’s not a lot of green space there, and so to take it away would be a real blow to the neighborhood.”

Other community members echoed Dygert’s concerns about the potential loss of the park.

“If it is surplused, it will never come back. You’re not going to go bulldoze a neighborhood to put in a 4-acre park. That just doesn’t happen,” said one Kennewick resident during the meeting.

Citizens and councilmembers also shared concerns about having other buyers expressing interest in the property if the city declares it surplus land. 

The council ultimately voted five to one to hold off on considering the resolution to declare the land surplus until Jan. 19, 2027. The pause would allow time to come up with strategies on how best to use the land. 

New admin building

During the council’s public hearing, Chaplaincy CEO Laurie Jackson said that the Hospice House renovation was evidence of its commitment to being in the neighborhood. And she believes a new building would solve what she called safety issues and be a more positive and productive use of the space.

The Chaplaincy has “encountered persistent issues related to unhoused activity at the park site, as well as drug use. These things obviously have a way of spreading outside of the lot itself, impacting the local church, I believe the residences in the area, and obviously our operations as well,” several times prompting police response, Diaz said during the council’s public hearing.

Jackson said that Chaplaincy’s executive team and board of directors are “unanimously in support of this request.”

Diaz told the Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business that the new building would consolidate Chaplaincy’s operations – as when the agency moved its Cork’s Place Kids Grief Center from 712 W. 19th Ave. in Kennewick to its current home in the Hospice House building in 2023. 

Chaplaincy’s current administration building at 1480 Fowler St. in Richland is a 10-minute drive and roughly 5 miles away from Hospice House and Yelm Park. The two-story Fowler Street building was built in 2011 for nearly $2 million and is 12,863 square feet in size. 

Diaz told the Journal that the new building would be one level and comparable in size to the current building, though with a different distribution of spaces to adjust to the nonprofit’s current needs. 

Chaplaincy has about 100 employees, Diaz said, many of whom are out in the field visiting the nonprofit’s 160 or so patients. Still, it’s important to gather the staff for meetings and events, she said, and more meeting space is a priority in a new building.  

Paying for construction

The potential land purchase and new building would cost around $6.5 million, Diaz said. 

When Chaplaincy decided in 2025 to renovate its Hospice House, the decision was partially motivated by the lower costs of a renovation compared to building new. The decision cut costs from $18 million to $3.5 million, partly funded by selling land adjacent to the existing administration building once set aside for a new Hospice House, partly through two state Department of Commerce grants, and the rest raised through a community fundraising campaign, the Journal reported in May 2025. 

The Hospice House is the only inpatient hospice facility serving Benton and Franklin counties.

Diaz said that an office building would be a less costly project than a skilled nursing facility.

“We have the funds to move our administration services to this site in Kennewick and build a structure that is inviting, serene and of high quality,” Jackson said during the public hearing. 

Diaz said that the sale of Chaplaincy’s current administrative building, which wouldn’t be needed after moving to a new location, could bring in between $3 million and $3.5 million. 

Chaplaincy also has received a substantial donor gift, Diaz said, made up of a mix of different assets, including two properties. The gift is “definitely a part of how we would make that possible,” she said. 

Chaplaincy sold one of these estates, a Richland house, for $750,000 in July. 

Community conversations

While a potential land purchase is still far away, Diaz said that Chaplaincy is having conversations with the city, Kennewick Police Department, the Lutheran church and the community with a focus on transparency. 

“We’re definitely looking at something that will be beneficial for (the church), beneficial for the community, and then for our organization as well,” she said. 

Chaplaincy is hosting a community fundraising luncheon, Live Your Best Life, 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 4, at the HAPO Center, 6600 Burden Blvd., Pasco. 

Go to: tccbestlife.org/fundraising-lunch.