Development & Finance

Topgolf Breaks Ground on 72-Bay Venue at Valley Children's Campus in Madera

Topgolf has broken ground on a 72-bay sports entertainment venue at Valley Children's Hospital in Madera, California. The summer 2027 project marks Topgolf's first hospital partnership.

Topgolf has broken ground on a 72-bay sports entertainment venue on the Madera, California campus of Valley Children's Hospital, with the two-level complex slated to open in summer 2027 as the first major tenant in a planned mixed-use development anchored by the pediatric health system.

The project, dubbed Topgolf San Joaquin Valley, marks the first hospital-system partnership in Topgolf's history and introduces a design the company calls a first for California. The venue will pair 72 climate-controlled hitting bays with a full-service restaurant and bar, an arcade, a patio and a family-friendly mini golf course.

For Valley Children's Healthcare, the deal functions as a real estate and community-development play rather than a traditional sponsorship. "Healthcare organizations across the country face significant challenges, and we have a responsibility to think differently about how we sustain our mission," said President and CEO Todd Suntrapak. He framed the Topgolf partnership as a way to "build a stronger foundation so we can deliver the programs, services and extraordinary care our children and families rely on every single day."

What is Valley Children's building around the venue?

The health system is positioning Topgolf as the anchor for a broader campus that will add retail, dining, hospitality and entertainment to a site historically defined by clinical operations. Hospital President and Chief Administrative Officer William Chaltraw Jr. said the development is calibrated to families who travel hundreds of miles for specialty pediatric care and "spend days, weeks or even months away from home."

Topgolf CEO David McKillips tied the site to the chain's California expansion. "From the moment we visited Valley Children's, we knew this was something special," he said. "Topgolf exists to bring people together, and there's no better partner for that mission than a hospital that's spent decades doing exactly that for families across the Valley."

How does the Madera venue differ from existing Topgolf sites?

  • 72 climate-controlled hitting bays
  • Full-service restaurant and bar
  • Arcade, outdoor patio and family-friendly mini golf course
  • First Topgolf venue co-located on a children's hospital campus
  • First-of-its-kind California design, per the company

What will the food and beverage program look like?

The venue will operate a full-service restaurant and bar alongside the hitting bays, expanding Topgolf's standard kitchen-and-bay model into a format that also includes an arcade, patio and mini golf course. Topgolf has not disclosed the restaurant's cuisine direction, check average, staffing model, or whether the operation will be company-run or licensed to a third-party operator. Those details will shape unit economics for the Madera site, where Valley Children's expects the surrounding retail and hospitality tenants to activate around the venue's traffic.

The Madera project extends Topgolf's California footprint into the Central Valley, a market that has not previously hosted a Topgolf venue. Valley Children's will draw revenue from consumer-facing tenants on land historically reserved for clinical operations, while creating an amenity base for the patient families the system serves.

Construction is now underway. Financial terms of the lease, the restaurant's operating model, and any food and beverage brand partnerships have not been disclosed. Topgolf has targeted summer 2027 for the venue's first guest check.

topgolfvalley-children-s-hospitalmixed-use-developmentsports-entertainmenthealthcare-real-estate

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Staff writer covering marketplaces and e-commerce at The Pass Brief.

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