Guam Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero is seen in front of a map and aerial view of a property to be purchased for a new hospital during a press conference on Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, in Adelup.
HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — It appears that the governor’s administration finally has its location for a new public hospital — about 48 acres of private property next to Eagles Field in Mangilao. The land belongs to the estate of Catalina Eclavea Camacho.
“Last Thursday, the courts approved the sale of this property,” Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero stated Monday, during a press conference announcing the pending property acquisition.
“Now, in a couple of days, we will finalize the purchase of this property,” Leon Guerrero added.
The purchase for the property will be finalized Oct. 23, and the governor said she is targeting to get site preparation work ongoing by the end of the year.
“Our strategy is to try and get groundbreaking in the next year, year and a half for our hospital. Once that happens, we probably will have a new hospital in four to five years,” Leon Guerrero added.
The Guam Housing and Urban Renewal Authority oversaw the purchase of the property after its board accepted a $10 million loan offer from the governor in May. The loan utilized Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds or CSLFRF granted to the governor by the American Rescue Plan Act and was intended for capital projects, specifically for the purchase of real property to develop health care facilities and related community development projects in Mangilao.
The final purchase price for the Camacho property is $3.5 million, which was determined via appraisal, according to officials at Monday’s announcement. According to GHURA Deputy Director Fernando Esteves, the general plan is to transfer the property to the government of Guam, and that will forgive the loan.
Because the purchase was managed by GHURA, an autonomous agency, and utilized federal dollars under the governor’s control, it did not involve the attorney general or the Guam Legislature, which has butted heads with the governor over the choice of location for a new hospital.
With the existing Guam Memorial Hospital facility aged and deteriorating and with renovation costs estimated at $761 million, Leon Guerrero has made constructing a new public hospital and medical complex a primary goal for her administration.
“Several things came to my thinking. One, is it really is going to be almost impossible to renovate a hospital and continue its operations at the same time. Second, it’s also, I think, kind of not prudent to take an old hospital, an old building and try to retrofit it when we could really build a totally new structure for our people…. We also felt that we need to locate a hospital in the center of the island, where it could be easily accessible or maybe quicker access to the hospital. And that’s how we came up with Mangilao,” Leon Guerrero said Monday.
She first pursued federal property in the Eagles Field area of Mangilao. However, Attorney General Douglas Moylan denied a proposed lease for the property, citing various legal issues, including noncompliance with federal and local laws regarding legislative approval and appropriation of funds for the lease. And due to the Eagles Field issue, the Legislature also made it a requirement to first get its approval for the purchase or long-term lease of property owned by the federal government.
With Eagles Field no longer viable, the governor turned her attention to property owned by the Guam Ancestral Lands Commission, the Eda Agaga area in Barrigada/Mangilao. But many doctors opposed that proposal and wanted instead to build a new public hospital at Ypao Point in Tamuning, near the existing GMH facility.
That resulted in two competing bills. One from the governor to facilitate the sale or lease of GALC land for the construction of a medical complex, and one from Sen. Chris Barnett, to place a new public hospital in Tamuning.
Barnett’s measure, Bill 185-37, passed in February but was vetoed by the governor.
Hospital first
This new private property in Mangilao is about half the size of the prior properties considered by the governor in light of her goal of standing up a medical complex. Leon Guerrero said Monday that the plan is to first build a new public hospital on the property.
“GHURA is also in negotiations with other properties nearby to expand the acreage. And yes, the plan is still for a complex, but the most urgent need right now is to build a hospital. And 48 acres is very much sufficient for the hospital that we plan to build,” Leon Guerrero said Monday.
The governor has set aside about $124 million in CSLFRF for the new hospital’s site preparation. Officials can get a better idea of how much the actual facility will cost after preparatory work and an architecture and engineering plan is completed, Leon Guerrero said Monday.
As for funding the construction of the actual hospital facility, the governor made note of the Guam 21st Century Healthcare Center Act of 2021, which authorizes a lease/lease back arrangement for the construction of a new public hospital.
“That law is already in place, so we do not have to go down to the Legislature for authority to do that. And so, the financing plan for this hospital is, basically, we’re trying to get as many federal grants that we can have to build it. We’re trying to get money from the Department of Defense also … as this hospital will also provide services for both military and civilians. And also going out into the open market. But I would prefer to first prioritize grants and decrease the debt services for our people,” the governor said.
Esteves said there may also be financing opportunities through the Federal Housing Administration.
Disclosure request
The announcement of the property acquisition comes a day before the Guam Legislature is set to enter emergency session over funding issues in critical areas of GovGuam, including a funding shortfall for GMH.
It also comes after Barnett requested disclosures regarding information on the property, including information about beneficiaries or heirs. A co-administrator of the Camacho estate does share the same name as an employee at the Guam Economic Development Authority, although The Guam Daily Post has not been able to verify if they are the same person.
Esteves said he has had no engagement with that employee and that buying and selling agents were used for the land acquisition.
“When you do real estate transactions, particularly on Guam, you keep the transactions at arm’s length. What you analyze for are immediate conflicts of interest. I would expect that GEDA would prevent any conflicts of interest. But the land acquisition has nothing to do with GEDA. … No employee of GHURA, that we’re aware of, based on our analysis, had an interest on the property when we did the purchase. Neither did any of the Realtors, that we understand when they do the disclosure required under (Guam Administrative Rules),” Esteves said.
“Sure, there are probably heirs that you can find in any real estate that you have on Guam that’s going to have somebody working somewhere in the government. But on our end, no. This was a GHURA transaction. He’s not an employee of GHURA,” Esteves added.
‘Shocking’
Speaker Therese Terlaje, who holds legislative oversight on land matters, said she is glad the focus of the property purchase will be for a new public hospital.
“However, it’s shocking and unprecedented, the lack of transparency surrounding this and previous attempts by this governor and lieutenant governor to acquire property in this area,” Terlaje said.
“If Matrix (a report) is correct, it will cost taxpayers over $100 million to put in basic infrastructure to this area. It looks like there will be little if any ARP (American Rescue Plan) money left for actual construction of a hospital,” the speaker added.
