$146M expansion on the horizon for Methodist Hospital Northeast

Expansion plans align with the rapid population growth of Northeast San Antonio, George said. All five key Northeast San Antonio cities, those being Live Oak, Selma, Schertz, Universal City and Cibolo, have all grown in size since 2010, according to United States Census data. The most dramatic population jump occurred in Cibolo, adding over 12,000 residents from 2010 to 2020, an increase of 62.85%.

The first floor of the three-story, over 100,000 square-foot project will have a 14-bed Intensive Care Unit, or ICU, as well as managing inventory and expanding food services.

George said the ICU will be Northeast’s second ICU, and can accommodate different specialists. Hospital officials are working with physicians to see what they would want in the ICU, with a current plan to house both cardiovascular and neurotrauma specialists. Both the second and third floors will have 34 beds and house all medical-surgical nurses, as well as telemetry monitoring or remote monitoring, De La Garza said. In total, increasing capacity by 58 beds will eliminate double occupancy rooms, De La Garza added.

Aside from the new ICU and increased capacity, the tower expansion will renovate the Northeast kitchen and cafeteria, and leave shell space on the first floor for future expansion. The kitchen and cafeteria will both expand in size, and every piece of kitchen equipment will be updated, De La Garza said.

George said the cafeteria expansion is important due to its role as a “gathering spot” for families to feel a “little bit of normalcy” during a loved one’s hospital stay.

Why it matters

The elimination of double occupancy rooms, George says, allows for quicker transfer of patients into emergency rooms. She added that capacity constraints are something that’s experienced across the San Antonio area.

“With extra capacity, we can move patients up into their private room more quickly so that they can get that care started,” George said.

Jeffrey Fletcher, a board-certified cardiologist practicing with the Cardiology Clinic of San Antonio at the hospital, was part of a group of stakeholders giving input to the tower expansion. Fletcher said it’s important for patients to have a space free of outside noises, smells and other distractions.

“There’s frank and honest and sometimes difficult conversations that are very difficult to have when you’ve got somebody behind a curtain next to you,” he said. “This is something that [staff has] heard [physicians] on, and we’ve been making this push towards getting rid of double occupancy for a while.”

Zooming out

The hospital has also expanded its services over the past year.

In September 2024, Northeast officials celebrated the opening of a new 23,000 square-foot outpatient surgery department, which marked the completion of Methodist Plaza II.

“It allowed us to expand our capacity for outpatient surgery in a very family and patient-friendly environment, but then also allowed us to open up some capacity at the hospital for our inpatients,” George said.

Methodist Plaza II also houses hospital partners such as Alamo City Surgeons, Cardiology Clinic of San Antonio, Northeast Pulmonary Sleep Associates and Sports Medicine Associates of San Antonio.

“As our physician group kind of grew, we just didn’t really have space for anybody ... now we have a great, beautiful facility where we’re all on the same floor, [better] as far as efficiency and the patient experience ... the patients love it," Fletcher said.

Next steps

Construction documents and permitting is anticipated to be completed by the end of the year. Tower construction is slated to begin in January 2026 and be completed by July 2027, De La Garza said.