Tarrant County community and health leaders gathered April 16 to celebrate the groundbreaking of the new John Peter Smith Hospital in downtown Fort Worth.
The details
The 1.1 million-square-foot hospital will be the center of the JPS Master Plan, which will cost a total of $2.5 billion and encompasses several new buildings, including the new women’s center, a new parking garage, a medical outpatient building and a dedicated psychiatric emergency hospital.
“We are here today not just to break ground on a new hospital but to fulfill a promise,” JPS President and CEO Karen Duncan said. “This building will be a symbol of dignity, a symbol of access and a symbol of what it means to truly care for one another.”
The new and updated facilities will expand the capacity of the JPS Health system in Fort Worth and bring advanced clinical technology to Tarrant County and its residents, according to a hospital news release.
Zooming in
The new hospital will be at the corner of South Main and East Morphy streets and is expected to open in 2030, according to a presentation at the groundbreaking.
JPS Chief Operating Officer Jill Farrell said construction will begin on the new hospital within the next couple of weeks.
The new hospital will cost about $1.5 billion of the $2.5 billion and feature 740 beds with room to possibly expand to 800 beds, according to the master plan. The current hospital, located at 1500 S. Main St. in Fort Worth, has 582 beds.
The current hospital will remain in use until the new hospital is open, Farrell said.
“It just means so much when the community knows that we are here to provide health care to anybody who is in need of health care,” Duncan said.
The backstory
John Peter Smith, who would become the future mayor of Fort Worth, donated 5 acres of land for a county hospital in 1877, according to the hospital website.
By 1938, the hospital on site already was at capacity for the region, and expansions continued into the turn of the century, the website states.
In 2018, Tarrant County commissioners called for an $800 million JPS bond with no tax rate increase, which passed in the local election that year, according to previous reporting.
Farrell said that $800 million will be the only taxpayer portion going to the construction of the new facilities. The rest of the $2.5 billion will be made up from grants, donations, Medicare, Medicaid and other sources.
