A two-story office building at 32275 32nd Ave. S. in Federal Way that once housed hundreds of DaVita corporate employees has a new owner: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. The Seattle-based cancer treatment and research institution paid $18 million for the property on September 22, closing a sale for the property.
The building was sold by a Realty Income Corp.-affiliated LLC, according to the Tacoma News Tribune, which reported the transaction. Christina Verheul, associate vice president of communications for Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, confirmed to the paper that “We can confirm that Fred Hutch Cancer Center has purchased a building in Federal Way” and said the organization expects to share more information about its plans for the site in 2027.
The building sits on a 10.29-acre site and includes 632 surface parking stalls, per the News Tribune's reporting. It was completed in 2001, and the previous LLC owner had purchased the site from Weyerhaeuser Corporate Real Estate Holdings for $19.76 million back in November 2012 — meaning the property just changed hands for slightly less than it sold for nearly 14 years earlier.
A Data Center Built Into the First Floor
Beyond office space, the building includes a 24,468-square-foot data center on the first floor, a detail the News Tribune noted in its coverage of the sale. Commercial real estate filings published by the Commercial Brokers Association describe the facility as containing 187,612 square feet of rentable space along with a full-service cafeteria and a Tier III data center with 13,700 square feet of raised floor space. A sales flyer described the property as the 32nd Avenue East Campus Building and pitched its layout as flexible enough for back-office, education, healthcare, or other adaptive reuse.
That flexibility lines up with how Federal Way's zoning code treats the parcel. The sales flyer identifies the site as zoned OP-1.
From Timber Giant to Dialysis Hub to Cancer Center
The building's corporate history traces back to Weyerhaeuser, which owned the surrounding campus. Weyerhaeuser sold its entire 425-acre Federal Way headquarters campus to Los Angeles-based Industrial Realty Group for $70.5 million in February 2016, according to Heartland LLC, as the timber company relocated to Seattle's Pioneer Square. Heartland LLC reported that the relocation plan called for space for 800 headquarters employees.
DaVita moved into the vacated campus in stages. The Denver-based kidney dialysis provider initially relocated 350 workers from Tacoma to the property, then decided in 2017 to move its remaining 500 corporate employees from downtown Tacoma to Federal Way, consolidating its South Sound workforce there, as reported by the News Tribune via HeraldNet. DaVita later announced corporate staff reductions.
Better Transit Access Could Help Any Future Use
Whatever Fred Hutch eventually builds at the site will benefit from a transit link that didn't exist when DaVita first moved in. Sound Transit opened the 7.8-mile Federal Way Link Extension on December 6, extending light rail service from Angle Lake into downtown Federal Way with three new stations. The $2.5 billion project connects the city directly to Sea-Tac Airport and downtown Seattle, a boost in accessibility that could matter for both healthcare workers and patients if Fred Hutch develops clinical or research functions on site.
Fred Hutch's move also fits a pattern of institutional interest in the broader former Weyerhaeuser grounds. The Washington State Legislature funded a 2022 capital study to evaluate purchasing or leasing the main 340,000-square-foot former Weyerhaeuser headquarters building for a regional public center focused on education, job training, and economic innovation, examining workforce needs across South King and Pierce counties. That civic interest has run alongside years of opposition to Industrial Realty Group's proposals to build over 1 million square feet of industrial warehouses on other portions of the campus, opposition that, according to the Cultural Landscape Foundation, came from conservationists and historic preservation advocates worried about clear-cutting historic timberland and its effects on traffic and wetlands.
The $18 million Federal Way purchase is a notable physical commitment in the South Sound, though Verheul's comments to the News Tribune leave the building's eventual use — administrative, clinical, or something else — unresolved until plans emerge next year.
