Ryan Ranch’s transition to a health care hub
MONTEREY >> Ryan Ranch, once home to rolling fields filled with cattle and clusters of oak trees, now serves as a local hub for shiny new health care centers.
The 309-acre property originally belonged to the much larger Rancho Saucito until developers broke ground in the early 1980s. Planners originally envisioned a “light industrial park” focused on manufacturing just off the Salinas-Monterey Highway, just southeast of Highway 218 and west of Laguna Seca. The landscape has since shifted to accommodate numerous medical centers.
Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, which opened off of Highway 1 between Carmel and Monterey in 1962, wanted to expand beyond its original 22-acre campus to offer more outpatient services. Ryan Ranch offered the most available land in an accessible location, so the organization bought property and began developing in the early 2000s.
Their outpatient campus opened in 2004 and includes a sleep disorders center, diabetes and nutrition therapy programs, imaging centers and labs, a community health and hospice resource center, and physician and administrative offices. Now known as Montage Health, the organization owns almost 50 acres on Upper and Lower Ragsdale Drive for clinical and administrative centers.
On Upper Ragsdale, they submitted a master plan for five buildings. Three of those are currently built and in use. Montage just broke ground on the fourth, which will house the Carol Hatton Breast Care Center, opening in 2020.
Montage officials say they will decide the fifth building’s purpose within the next 10 years based on community need.
Tim Nylen, the Montage Health vice president who oversees facilities, said the organization assesses whether there are gaps in what the hospital and current facilities provide and uses that assessment to guide development. “We would look at that as always being our first choice,” he said.
Half of Montage’s property on Lower Ragsdale is allocated for Ohana, a $105.8 million youth mental health care center to be completed in the summer of 2022. The other half of the property can accommodate up to four additional buildings.
Accessibility motivated some of the development. Aside from being “a little sunnier out there and a little warmer,” Nylen said, “folks who may live in Marina or Salinas enjoy the fact that they’re out at Ryan Ranch because it’s an easier commute.”
Moving administrative services such as IT and finances to Ryan Ranch also opens up space closer to the hospital for doctors who need to be nearby, such as OBGYNs.
Doctors who don’t need to be close to the hospital can own their suites at Ryan Ranch. “It’s somewhat like a condo,” said Nylen.
Dr. James Gilbert, president of the Monterey Bay Independent Physician Association, said the model gives Montage the ability to recruit the increasing number of physicians that seek employment with a larger organization rather than a private practice.
Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare also opened a Primecare center at Ryan Ranch in 2016. In addition to primary care doctors, their facility houses a Central Coast Cardiology center and an advanced diagnostic 3D imaging center. The goal in opening the center was to increase access to primary care physicians and cardiologists, two of the most needed health
Aerial views of Ryan Ranch show how the area has been developed.
care providers in the area.
SVMH also hosts free community events at Ryan Ranch, such as their Ask the Experts lecture series. Though they own additional land on Ragsdale Drive, SVMH doesn’t currently intend to develop there. Instead, they plan to triple the size of their facility in Gonzales and launch a free mobile clinic for underserved areas.
It seems that, for now, Montage’s developments will complete Ryan Ranch. “We’re at sort of the end of Ryan Ranch’s build-out,” said Kimberly Cole, the
city’s community development director.
Even so, development in the area is far from over. The city recently invited proposals for 125 acres directly adjacent to Ryan Ranch that Monterey obtained from the Fort Ord dissolution. So far, two developers have submitted proposals that are currently under review.
Aside from those plans, Cole said the city is currently focusing on improving existing lots within Monterey rather than building new, sprawling developments.