Insurance Letter Prompts Nursing Home Sale

TUCSON-A letter from an insurance company led to the sale of a 103-bed nursing home in Tucson to a Carlsbad, CA, company with a portfolio of nursing home holdings.

Dick Toolson of Rillito Holdings LLC picked up the Sunbridge Catalina nursing home with a $2.6-million offer just one week after the 2611 N. Warren Ave. property went on the market. “It’s a wonderful property,” Bernie Bajoras, with Marcus & Millichap’s Phoenix office, tells GlobeSt.com of the concrete and masonry constructed facility, located three miles north of Tucson’s CBD near Speedway and 6th Avenue.

The Estate of Mary Lindsay of Tucson, owner of Sunbridge Catalina, put the property up for bid in May, Bajoras said, after learning in February that Sun Healthcare opted not to renew its lease in a move by the insurance firm to head off bankruptcy. “They sent out letters (opting out of leases) to about 100 facilities in Arizona and California and there was a scramble to find new operators,” said Bajoras.

It didn’t take Sunbridge Catalina long to fill that void. Within a week of going on the market in May, Rillito Holdings, which owns several other nursing facilities in Arizona and California, walked in with the only offer. “What it did was allow them to expand their network of facilities,” said Bajoras, who handled the deal for both sides.