TAUNTON — As residents this year debated a proposal to build a $500 million casino resort at an industrial park here, the future of another massive property six miles north seemed a near certainty: the 154-acre site of Taunton State Hospital, one of the state’s two remaining publicly run hospitals exclusively for the mentally ill, was marked for closure by the governor in January.

The Patrick administration’s closure, planned for the end of the year, would empty 18 historic buildings in this cash-strapped city.