Patterson could have a hospital once again, amid new apartments near downtown
Patterson has taken a key step toward having a hospital for the first time since 1998.
It could begin construction in 2035 as part of a 39-acre complex proposed by the Del Puerto Health Care District just west of downtown.
The first phase could be ready in 2028: buildings for the current outpatient clinic and ambulance service. Other phases could bring a medical office building next to the hospital and varying levels of senior care. The site also could get multi-story housing and shops for all ages in a walkable new neighborhood.
The health care district board voted Monday, Dec. 8, to submit the detailed plans to the city of Patterson. The City Council would make the final decision after extensive public comment.
The construction cost is not yet known, Chief Executive Officer Karin Freese said by email Thursday. The health care district has a $27 million state grant for mental health care in the first phase. It could tap other government and private sources for the ultimate project, including patient fees and levies on land developers.
The district includes the fast-growing Patterson and the much smaller towns of Grayson, Westley and Crows Landing. For 27 years, residents have had to use hospitals in Modesto, Turlock and elsewhere.
“The West Side has severely lacked access to medical services since 1998,” Stanislaus County Supervisor Channce Condit said by phone Thursday. “... I think they are doing a great thing.”
Condit’s district includes the West Side. He said the new Patterson hospital would mesh with his effort to bring health care to the former Crows Landing Naval Air Station. He said a second hospital could be funded by a tribal government seeking to build a casino. Condit declined to name the tribe.
The Del Puerto Health Care District hospital would have 25 acute-care beds, not much more than the former building’s 17. Modern medicine allows more outpatient treatment for conditions that once required long hospital stays.
The original facility, Del Puerto Hospital, would have celebrated its 75th anniversary this year had it survived.
The health care district’s history is detailed in recent articles in the Patterson Irrigator newspaper. It was formed in 1946 to raise property taxes for the hospital project, with an elected board.
Members voted to spend $5,000 for the hospital site, a five-acre alfalfa field at Ninth and E streets. It opened in 1950, financed by a bond measure approved by 684 of the 701 voters.
Patterson had about 1,100 residents at the time, vs. about 25,000 today. The district added ambulance service in 1958, a relatively short drive to the emergency room.
The Modesto Bee reported on the struggles that would lead to the hospital closure 40 years later. The district faced a shortage of physicians and insurance providers. Many of Del Puerto’s beds were empty because patients were at much larger hospitals in the county and beyond.
The board voted on March 25, 1998, to shut down within 90 days. “None of us would be happy with this decision, but we have to be realistic,” member Ed Maring said that night. “We have to stop the hemorrhaging.”
A day later, The Bee quoted a 36-year-old woman who had recently taken her feverish son to the hospital. “That makes me nervous, that there would be nothing on the West Side,” she said. “But to keep dumping money into a losing situation isn’t good, either.”
The same thing had already happened in Newman, about 10 miles south on Highway 33. Financial troubles forced the 1994 closure of West Side Community Hospital, also run by a district board.
Providers other than Del Puerto have continued to staff clinics within its territory. Among them are Golden Valley Health Centers, Sutter Health and Kaiser Permanente.
The need for a local hospital remains, the district CEO said in her email. “This project has been in conceptual development since Del Puerto Hospital closed in 1998, and we are now advancing the detailed budgeting and phasing plans,” Freese said.
The district has continued to have ambulance service, but to more distant hospitals, and established a clinic in 2003. It is on Keystone Pacific Parkway, amid the massive distribution centers near Interstate 5. Most of its services are offered on weekdays between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. The urgent-care portion goes to 8 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Del Puerto’s project is on a mostly vacant triangle bounded by Ninth Street and Sperry and Ward avenues. Downtown is a quarter-mile walk away. The retail strips of a later era are about the same distance to the west.
Del Puerto leaders aim to break ground on the first phase in 2026. The entire plan must still undergo study of its environmental impacts before going to the Patterson Planning Commission and finally the City Council.
Details on the planned phases
2028: A building at Ninth and E streets would house district administration and ambulance crews. An adjacent structure would have primary care clinics relocated from Keystone Pacific Parkway and the mental health services. The latter got its grant through state Proposition 1 of 2024.
2030: The first of the 75 senior housing units could be ready, for people who are still independent. Later phases would add assisted living, memory care and skilled nursing.
2032: The medical office building could be done, next to the future hospital and parking garage.
The all-ages housing and retail would involve private partners and could happen any time after 2028. The only specific plan so far is for 20 townhomes on the site’s north edge. Las Palmas Avenue could have three-story buildings with ground-floor shops topped by an unknown number of apartments.
Las Palmas has been Patterson’s main downtown street since its founding in 1909. Most of the business has shifted to retail strips to the west, including one within walking distance of the new hospital. The district plan includes commercial uses on the Sperry Avenue side.
HDR Inc. a global firm, designed the planned complex in the Mission Revival style. It matches Patterson’s historic city hall.
This story was originally published December 12, 2025 at 11:57 AM.
