SAN ANTONIO – Editor’s note: This story was published through a partnership between the San Antonio Business Journal and KSAT.
UT Health San Antonio plans to begin construction in spring 2021 on the University of Texas Health Specialty and Research Hospital, a 144-bed facility in the heart of the South Texas Medical Center.
The project is expected to cost $400 million to $430 million and take roughly three years to complete, expanding the institution’s role in medical research and its stature in comprehensive cancer care.
The project, which has been in the works for a few years, is in the design phase, UT Health San Antonio President Dr. William Henrich said. The hospital is slated for a site at the northwest corner of Wurzbach Road and Floyd Curl Drive — on land contributed by the San Antonio Medical Foundation.
“In many ways, their donation of this land is the lynchpin to the entire deal,” Henrich told me.
The hospital is expected to create 750 to 800 new jobs and accommodate 130 additional residency slots on the UT Health San Antonio campus.
“It’s what Texas has desperately needed,” Henrich said. “Right now, Texas is a net exporter of medical student graduates.”
The new facility will complement the Mays Cancer Center, home to the UT Health San Antonio MD Anderson Cancer Center, an National Cancer Institute-designated research campus immediately to the south of the planned hospital site. Henrich said the new hospital and cancer center will be connected by a climate-controlled bridge.
Read more on the plans for this research center at the San Antonio Business Journal.