St. Luke’s looks to buy Washington Group Plaza

St. Luke’s Health System is under contract to purchase all the buildings at Washington Group Plaza, which originally was built by Morrison Knudsen Corp., one of Boise’s legacy corporate giants.

St. Luke’s in June 2015 entered into a lease with an option to buy the Plaza I building, but since then Washington Group Plaza owner Second City Capital Partners of Vancouver, B.C., approached St. Luke’s to purchase all the buildings, St.

Luke’s spokeswoman Anita Kissée said.

Washington Group Plaza is comprised of the six-story, 125,568-square-foot Plaza I built in 1970; the four-story, 115,600-square-foot Plaza II built in 1975; and, added in 1982, the two-story, 138,633-square-foot Central Plaza and the seven-story, 220,045-square-foot Plaza IV, according to Ada County Assessor records.

They are located where Broadway, Myrtle Street, Front Street and Park Boulevard all converge.

“Whether St. Luke’s will proceed to purchase has not been determined,” Kissée said. “The timeline is still subject to evaluation.  We are conducting due diligence and evaluating the property.”

St. Luke’s has leased space in the Plaza II building since 2013 and started moving into the Plaza I building in July 2016 after the departure of  the Boise office of Los Angeles-based AECOM, an architecture, design, engineering, and construction firm.

“About 370 St. Luke’s employees are currently working or in the course of relocating to space in Plaza I and Plaza II under leases that are already in place,” Kissée said.

This includes employees in clinical training, clinical research, human resources, information technology, and operations improvement. Plaza 1 will house St. Luke’s Center for Learning and Development, an education hub and training site for St. Luke’s employees and other clinical providers.