Citing an impasse in negotiations, the Comprehensive Cancer Centers of Nevada has ended its bid to lease offices at the Nevada Cancer Institute Summerlin facility operated by the University of California San Diego Health System.
In a release issued late Thursday by representatives of Comprehensive, the company said Universal Health Services Inc., which owns Summerlin Hospital, declined to grant an amendment that would have allowed a for-profit cancer treatment and research facility in the building.
UC San Diego confirmed last month that it is closing the Summerlin facility on Dec. 31.
"UC San Diego Health System is deeply disappointed that its genuine efforts to bring Comprehensive Cancer Centers of Nevada into the Nevada Cancer Institute flagship building will not produce results at this time," Jacqueline Carr, a spokeswoman for University of San Diego Health Sciences said in a statement. "If negotiations had succeeded and the amendment was granted, CCCN would have brought high-caliber cancer care to the NVCI flagship building and would have leased approximately 43,000 square feet of space...We hope to keep communication open with CCCN and Universal Health Services Inc. to come to a resolution that is beneficial to the region's cancer patients."
The institute filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after being the target of several lawsuits in 2011 by professional staff who were laid off. The UC-San Diego Health System submitted the only qualified bid for the property and purchased the institute out of bankruptcy for $18 million in January.
At the time, officials said they planned to maintain the center for at least three years with the assistance of the institute’s fundraising arm, the Nevada Cancer Institute Foundation, which was formed by MGM Resorts International CEO Jim Murren and his wife, Heather.
At the time UC-San Diego took over, the institute had an estimated 135 employees.
Comprehensive, an affiliate of the US Oncology Network, said in October that it planned to lease 42,000 square feet of space in the institute’s 142,000-square-foot building.
The lease agreement with the institute requires a nonprofit organization “devoted to cancer research, education and treatment” to operate there. Comprehensive executives and physicians said they were “disappointed an amendment could not be granted.”
Comprehensive said it planned to operate medical oncology, radiation oncology, diagnostic, infusion areas, exam rooms and a pharmacy and retain some of the existing staff, physicians and equipment.
“The inability to satisfactorily amend the restricted covenant will end (Comprehensive’s) plans to provide patient care at the flagship building,” the company’s release said.
The company has 13 locations, 38 physicians and a clinical research program conducting 170 studies a year and is planning to expand in northwest Las Vegas and Henderson in 2013.