The University of Texas Medical Branch will open a new hospital to replace one that unexpectedly closed nearly a year ago.

The UTMB Clear Lake campus at 200 Blossom St., Webster, will open March 30 and take the place of the former Bay Area Regional Medical Center, which closed in May after its owner, Medistar Corp., filed for bankruptcy.

UTMB’s lease of the facility includes much of the hospital equipment left inside, and UTMB will employ several health care professionals affected by the previous medical center’s closing, said Katrina Lambrecht, UTMB’s vice president of health system operations and regional hospitals.

“We’re excited to have many of those physicians come back and work with us as UTMB,” she said.

The new campus is part of the UTMB’s mission to bring health care services to where patients live and capitalize on the Bay Area’s booming health care industry, Lambrecht said.

“The Bay Area market is one of the fastest-growing markets in Texas,” she said. “We’ve seen a need for some time.”

UTMB is still expanding its League City campus, which will include additional hospital beds when completed in about a year. Both the League City and Clear Lake campuses will offer emergency rooms, operating rooms and other hospital mainstays, but specialized services will differ between the two, Lambrecht said.

“We don’t wanna duplicate everything we have at both facilities,” she said.

The League City campus is partnered with the MD Anderson Cancer Center, so oncology services will remain at the League City campus. The Clear Lake campus will provide neuroscience and heart services for those who suffer heart attacks or strokes, Lambrecht said.

The labor and delivery unit at the League City campus will move to the Clear Lake campus, Lambrecht said.

“That’s a shift for us,” she said.

The hospital will include 87 private patient rooms with the capacity to expand to 191 rooms as well as 23 private emergency rooms and eight operating rooms.