A Sacramento health care giant abruptly scrapped a $1 billion Bay Area expansion Friday, blaming red tape and dealing a crushing blow to the local economy.
Sutter Health will no longer pursue building a hospital in Emeryville, citing California’s environmental review law that has plagued construction projects for its red tape.
“Over two years, we pursued relief under the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA. Those efforts did not secure the certainty needed to advance the hospital project, leaving it vulnerable to litigation that could delay construction and new hospital services for years,” the company said.
Under CEQA, projects need to complete adequate reviews of their environmental impacts before receiving approval to proceed. That process can be bogged down by lawsuits and take years.
Instead, Sutter Health said it will expand outpatient care in Emeryville while searching for a new location for the hospital.
“Our commitment to the 542,000 patients we serve across the East Bay remains strong,” Sutter Health insisted, adding it will continue to try to convince lawmakers to grant a full exemption from the environmental law.
The stunning decision comes after more than a year of planning over the proposed hospital, which would have included a 17-story tower with approximately 325 beds, emergency services and a rooftop helipad.
The project would have been one of the largest developments in Emeryville’s history.
The reversal also poses questions for the larger Emeryville campus, located at Hollis and 53rd streets, which Sutter had purchased for $450 million in early 2025 and provided much needed tax revenue for the city.
The proposed medical campus was to encompass roughly 1.3 million square feet, though it faced local opposition, the Emeryville Eye reported.
Now, the campus may only have a range of outpatient services such as a primary and specialty care, diagnostic services, urology and orthopedics, or imaging, laboratory and pharmacy facilities.
“The project remains vulnerable to litigation and years of potential delay. We cannot allow that uncertainty to stall needed investments in care,” Sutter Health said on the pivot to outpatient facilities.
The new hospital was intended to replace Sutter’s Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley, which is scheduled to close in 2030 due to compliance concerns with California earthquake safety rules for hospitals.
Sutter said it will pursue legislation to allow Alta Bates to stay open until a new hospital is built and that “there is no immediate change to patient care or services at Alta Bates.”
City officials said they were shocked by the news.
“The project, initially, when they announced it was more about healthcare access in this part of the region,” Emeryville City Manager LaTanya Bellow told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Now that they’re not moving forward, I don’t know what happens to that.”
