Emeryville Could Get New Tallest Building From Sutter Health

Sutter Health is putting more muscle behind its planned Emeryville hospital campus, unveiling a bigger and taller vision for the $1 billion project that could permanently alter both the city’s skyline and Sutter Health’s role in the East Bay health care economy.

The Sacramento-based health system released updated plans for its Emeryville Medical Center, outlining a 17-story, 780,000-square-foot hospital at Horton and 53rd Streets in Emeryville, the San Francisco Business Times reported. The project would include 325 beds at full buildout, up from the 200 initially proposed, and would become Emeryville’s tallest building if completed as designed, surpassing the 310-foot Pacific Park Plaza.

The updated plan details part of Sutter’s efforts to transform the 12-acre former Emery Yards biotech campus into a regional medical hub. Sutter Health also plans to convert the campus’ existing buildings at 5555 Hollis Street and 5300 Chiron Way into medical office and ambulatory care facilities. A roughly 55,000-square-foot “future project” building is also planned for the site, according to the Business Times.

The development is expected to eventually replace Sutter’s aging Alta Bates Summit Medical Center campus in Berkeley, which is scheduled to close in 2030 because it does not meet California seismic standards. Local officials previously warned that without a replacement facility, Berkeley risked losing its only emergency room and becoming what some described as a health care desert. The overall project could also absorb some of Emeryville’s oversupply of life sciences real estate, a market that has softened after years of speculative biotech expansion.

Sutter acquired the site from Blackstone’s BioMed Realty last year for $450 million, one of the largest systemwide investments the health care giant expects to make this decade. Construction is slated to begin in 2029 with an opening targeted for 2033.

Health care has quietly eclipsed tech as one of the Bay Area’s strongest growth engines. The sector’s employment in the East Bay has jumped 25 percent since 2020, according to CVL Economics data cited by the Business Times. Sutter Health’s forthcoming Emeryville Medical Center is expected to become a new locus of activity in the area.

“While all of the buzz in the Bay Area revolves around AI, health care is actually the largest job creator regionally,” Grant Jones, managing director at Cushman & Wakefield, said. “We are already seeing investors and ancillary health care services positioning themselves to be near this massive new campus.”

— Chris Malone Méndez