Berkeley’s only hospital and emergency room plans to shut down in 14 years to avoid state-mandated earthquake safety upgrades that hospital officials say would require costly reconstruction.

Long known as Alta Bates Medical Center — but renamed Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in 2000 when it merged with Summit Medical Center in Oakland — the Berkeley hospital and its acute-care facilities aren’t up to state standards that require acute-care buildings to remain operable after a major earthquake. Rather than renovate, Sutter Health, which operates Alta Bates and Summit, plans to close the 300-bed hospital and move services to Summit in Oakland.

Alta Bates isn’t closing up shop just because of seismic instability. According to Alta Bates Summit Medical Center CEO Chuck Prosper, it’s also closing to cut costs.

“Operating two full service hospitals less than 3 miles apart is inefficient and inhibits our ability to be most affordable to patients,” Prosper wrote in a letter addressed to the Berkeley City Council last week.

The move would leave Berkeley without an ER, and residents and city officials say they’re prepared to fight to keep the hospital in town. Berkeley city officials are considering a resolution to halt the closure and urge Sutter Health to renovate the hospital instead.

Retrofitting “is expensive, but the city’s doing it, the university’s doing it, the landlords are doing it,” said Berkeley Councilman Kriss Worthington. “And Sutter says, ‘Oh we’re just going to close down.’ We all have to pay the price.”

Quake code compliance

Two of the seven buildings at Alta Bates are not in compliance with a 1994 law, SB1953, that requires California hospitals not only to be able to withstand a strong earthquake, but also to remain open and running in its wake. The law sprang from two Southern California earthquakes — the Sylmar earthquake of 1971, in which many people died because of hospital collapses, and the Northridge quake of 1994, which forced the evacuation and closure of many hospitals.

Alta Bates’ acute-care facilities are built to survive an earthquake, but would not be able to continue operating in the aftermath, according to Eric Reslock, a representative for the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, which monitors the seismic safety of California hospitals.

California hospitals have until 2020 to ensure that their acute-care buildings can withstand an earthquake — a standard state officials said more than 92 percent of the state’s hospitals, including Alta Bates, currently meet. By 2030, all hospitals must be retrofitted to remain operational after a significant earthquake. Prosper called seismic renovations “unfeasible” for Alta Bates, which is located on Ashby Avenue.

Alta Bates was founded in 1905, and has been affiliated with Sutter Health since 2000. The hospital’s oldest building was constructed more than 60 years ago, according to Sutter Health spokeswoman Carolyn Kemp. She said it would be “tremendously expensive” to renovate the hospital to meet state standards, although she would not offer a specific price tag.

Seeking to stop closure

Members of Berkeley’s City Council, however, think keeping a functioning hospital in town is worth the cost. Councilmen Max Anderson, Jesse Arreguin and Worthington are sponsoring a city resolution to oppose the hospital closure and instead urge Sutter Health to retrofit the facility. The council will hear the resolution at its July 12 meeting.

The Alta Bates emergency department saw about 46,000 patients in 2015, Kemp said.

The burden of caring for these patients will fall on Summit in Oakland, according to Prosper. He wrote in his letter to the Berkeley City Council that the medical center plans to retain “all services, patients, physicians and clinicians” as it relocates services.

Sutter Health has also promised an expanded emergency department to accommodate an influx of new patients, but some residents say expansion can’t replace the loss of emergency care in Berkeley.

“You come in here, and the emergency room is full,” said Oakland resident Deborah Bigler outside of the Alta Bates ER recently. “Can you imagine if they were combined?”

Bigler has been coming to Alta Bates for 15 years.

Spokespeople for Sutter Health said that the use of the Alta Bates campus following the transfer has yet to be determined. However, the CEO’s letter suggested that it will used for outpatient care, which requires less stringent seismic compliance.

Alta Bates serves not only the Berkeley community, but also many patients in the greater area. The East Bay has already seen hospitals shut down, including Doctors Medical Center in San Pablo, which closed its hospital and emergency room in 2015.

Darren Goon of Vallejo has been going to Alta Bates since the 1990s. His mother was treated for cancer at the hospital, his twins were born there, and Goon himself stayed at the hospital for a week in June for treatment of gastric cancer. He said he will probably go to Summit once Alta Bates closes.

“It’s going to be a major loss for the community,” Goon said. “I guess we’d have to end up going to Summit.”

Libby Rainey is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: lrainey@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rainey_l