Anthony “Tony” Moiso, chairman and CEO of Rancho Mission Viejo LLC, declared his company’s commitment to the future of Providence Mission Hospital with a $50 million donation – the largest gift in the hospital foundation’s 33-year history.
“We’re investing in all the people that are here every day because we see what goes on here, and it’s really special,” Moiso told the Business Journal in an exclusive interview.
The landmark gift, announced today, will support Mission Hospital’s multiphase expansion plan that was first announced in 2022. It’s spending $712 million over seven years to expand its operations in South Orange County, including new clinics in San Clemente and Rancho Mission Viejo.
“We really want to put healthcare in those communities close to home,” Providence Mission Hospital Chief Executive Seth Teigen told the Business Journal.
In recognition, Mission Hospital is naming its new 100-bed hospital tower, expected to open in 2030, the Rancho Mission Viejo Family Tower.
The $50 million gift is a full circle moment for Rancho Mission Viejo, which in 1969 donated the land where Providence Mission Hospital sits on today.
Building 14K Homes on 6K Acres
Rancho Mission dates to 1882 when Moiso’s great-grandfather Richard O’Neill Sr. and James Flood purchased more than 200,000 acres of ranch land stretching from Saddleback Mountain to Oceanside.
In 1942, the U.S. Navy bought a portion of the land in San Diego County to establish Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. The remaining 52,000 acres became known as Rancho Mission Viejo. Since then, three families – O’Neill, Moiso and Avery families – have kept control.
The arrival of the Santa Ana (5) freeway in the 1960s transformed a predominantly rural Orange County into a suburban destination.
“A lot of the Irvine family and the Moulton family were selling to developers, so we decided, with Don Bren’s encouragement, who was the first president of our development company, to be developers and to stay,” Moiso said.
Moiso, who served in the army and joined the family company as vice president in the mid-1960s, helped put together a large-scale master plan that included Saddleback Community College.
He said that his uncle Richard O’Neill was approached by several doctors to consider land for the hospital, which the company donated.
Over the past 60 years, Rancho Mission Viejo has been the master developer of cities and communities like Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita and Ladera Ranch.
It’s in the middle of developing Rancho Mission Viejo, a 23,000-acre property located about 10 miles southeast of Mission Viejo.
Homebuilders thus far have built about 7,000 homes, which is half of the 14,000 plots entitled for homes on about 6,000 acres. The remaining 17,000 acres is being preserved for a large habitat conservation area called The Nature Reserve and for ranching and farming.
The development ranked No. 1 among Orange County’s best-selling master planned communities, with 476 sales in 2024, according to John Burns Research & Consulting. See page 21 for the Business Journal’s annual list of homebuilders.
About 225,000 people live in some 75,000 homes in areas developed by the company, according to Rancho Mission Viejo Vice Chairman Don Vodra.
“We’re creating the demand, and we’re providing the supply,” he joked.
Seeing the ranch grow into a community of homes, hospitals and colleges is “incredibly rewarding,” according to Moiso.
“We’ve done a good job over the last more than half century helping create South Orange County, but it belongs to the residents,” he said.
“We’ve been beneficiaries of the growth of this hospital in many ways,” said Moiso, who is 85 years old.
Eight of his grandchildren and two great grandchildren were born at Providence Mission Hospital. It’s also where other family members received care toward the end of their lives.
He recalled a housekeeper that worked for them for 27 years and never missed a day of work until one day she didn’t show up. When they went to her home, they found her on the floor. She had a stroke and stayed at Providence Mission Hospital for three weeks.
“What goes on here is worth supporting,” he said.
The mother-baby suites at the hospital are named after the Moiso family. Moiso said that they’ve also given support for the emergency room.
“You want to be able to go to the best possible hospital you can, and we think that was provided here on a daily basis,” Moiso said.
TAM of 900K Patients
Providence Mission Hospital serves a total addressable market of 900,000 patients, according to Teigen.
It ranks as the seventh largest hospital in Orange County, having generated $867 million in net patient revenue for the 12 months ended Sept. 30, 2024.
This month, Providence Mission Hospital is beginning the demolition of a building near the entrance to make way for the new Rancho Mission Viejo Family Tower.
It will expand existing services for intensive care, acute rehabilitation, radiology, an all-new cardiology department and surgical operating rooms, including the campus’ first hybrid operating room.
Teigen said they’re especially proud of offering acute rehab, saying that hospitals nowadays no longer have their own dedicated departments and instead use a third-party vendor or partner.
The tower will also expand the hospital’s emergency department (ED) capabilities by adding 20 observation beds, Teigen said.
Providence Mission Hospital’s other two big projects are progressing as well.
A 16,400-square-foot urgent care facility in San Clemente is on track to opening this summer.
A 42,000-square-foot clinic in Rancho Mission Viejo is also expected to be completed by next February and open in either late spring or early summer that year. It’s one of the biggest ambulatory buildings the hospital has built to date with a large imaging center for X-ray, CT, MRI, ultrasound, mammography and more.
Mission Hospital is the only adult and pediatric Level II trauma center in South Orange County, according to Teigen. That means patients who experience an accident or end up in the surgical ICU can do rehab at Mission Hospital as an inpatient.
“When you leave Mission Hospital, you’re ready to go home or go back to work the next week,” he said. “That is unique and something we think is a real differentiator for us as well.”
Another area of focus for Mission Hospital is liver cancer treatment.
It was the first center in California to gain access to histotripsy technology, a non-invasive procedure using ultrasound waves to target and destroy cancer tissue.
Teigen said that the hospital has performed over 200 treatments with the novel technology and has “done more procedures than anybody in the world.”
Comprehensive Campaign for $712M Expansion
Rancho Mission Viejo’s $50 million gift is an early donation in a comprehensive campaign to help fund Providence Mission Hospital’s seven-year, $712 million expansion in South Orange County.
The campaign will also help fund recruitment and retention programs, according to Nicole Balsamo, president and chief philanthropy officer for Providence Mission Hospital Foundation.
It will additionally create “an entire tower’s worth of naming rights,” along with naming opportunities for the hospital’s expanding ED and other parts of the campus, she said.
Balsamo didn’t disclose how much the campaign has raised to date but said that they’re sitting down with donors and building relationships with them opposed to project-centric fundraising.
“We want to know what our donors care about, then come alongside them and showcase what we can do to help,” Balsamo told the Business Journal.
One of the most notable examples of the effectiveness of Providence Mission Hospital’s fundraising is the Judi and Bill Leonard Institute for Cancer Prevention, Treatment and Wellness, which opened in 2019.
Half of the $75 million, four-story facility, located across the street from Mission Hospital’s main campus, was funded through philanthropy, according to Teigen.
This includes an “eight-figure gift” from Judi and William “Bill” Leonard, who is the former president and CEO of Philadelphia-based Aramark Corp., a Fortune 500 company that provides food, facilities and uniform services to companies in fields such as healthcare and education.
