What's happening
The UT Medical Center was first announced in summer 2023 as a "monumental" addition to downtown's medical district and a major new piece of UT Austin's academic health system. The project, then estimated at $2.5 billion, was envisioned as a pair of medical towers housing an MD Anderson clinical and research cancer center and UT Austin specialty hospital.
Following the Erwin Center's recent demolition, groundbreaking for the UT Medical Center on the old arena property at 1701 Red River St., Austin, was expected in 2026 ahead of a 2030 opening.
However, during a recent UT System board of regents meeting, board Chair Kevin Eltife announced the university is now eyeing an expanded campus in Northwest Austin for what he called "one of the biggest projects of this generation."
"We’re not just building an integrated academic medical center, we’re building a district for the future. For that reason, we are looking at a larger site on UT land north of campus near The Domain to allow for a long-term vision for this monumental step forward," Eltife said Nov. 20.
Zooming in
The UT Medical Center's initial planned location would place it within Austin's Innovation District already home to the Dell Seton Medical Center, UT Health Austin and UT Dell Medical School, as well as a future mixed-use redevelopment from Central Health. University officials are now evaluating land in The Domain area with a larger footprint than the nearly 20-acre downtown site.
An alternate location for the complex in Northwest Austin hasn't been finalized yet, and the Erwin Center property remains under consideration.
“There’s been a lot of discussion about this," Eltife said. "Both [MD Anderson President Peter] Pisters, [UT President Jim] Davis, their teams have been working very hard on this since we announced this. And now we’re going to have the design team look at this bigger site, see if it makes more sense.”
The UT Medical Center is still expected to open in 2030. The timing of a decision for the location hasn't been determined, while design work for the hospital project is continuing and won't be affected by either selection.
UT owns several Northwest Austin properties including the 230-acre JJ Pickle Research Campus off Burnet Road, the adjacent 46-acre Shops at Arbor Walk retail center off MoPac, and dozens of acres of undeveloped land near UT offices off Braker Lane. It's unclear which of those sites, or others, are under consideration for the future medical center.
A closer look
Moving away from a downtown medical center would represent a reversal from just months ago, when Texas law was adjusted with the stated intent of allowing taller hospitals to be built on the Erwin Center site.
House Bill 3114 from state Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, removed several Capitol View Corridors—regulatory limitations that block new development within certain sightlines of the Capitol dome—that crossed the medical district property. While UT didn't comment on the legislation, Geren cited the hospital plans when laying out his bill, and MD Anderson thanked the university for steering HB 3114 through the Legislature after its passage.
"With the bill’s recent signing, our teams are hard at work to develop plans for our future Austin campus. We look forward to building a world-class cancer center that allows patients in Austin and the surrounding region to receive the nation’s top cancer care close to home," MD Anderson had said in a June statement.
One more thing
After coming out of closed executive session Nov. 20, university regents voted to open a solicitation for a new multipurpose arena, student housing complex and parking facilities on UT Austin's campus next to the Moody Center.
A request for proposals for the “design, development, construction, equipping, operation and financing” of that project will now proceed through the 2033 Higher Education Development Foundation, which supports university real estate activity. Further board approval would be required before construction moves forward.
The new arena and housing will be situated on 4 acres of land between Martin Luther King Boulevard, Robert Dedman Drive and I-35, according to the regents' meeting agenda. UT's nearly 30-acre property in that location already contains the Moody Center, Mike Myers Stadium and field house, a parking garage, sports training center, and infrastructure facilities.
