Written by Ben Thompson with Community Impact
The University of Texas Medical Center, a planned UT Austin and MD Anderson Cancer Center medical complex, may now be located in Northwest Austin. The institutions had previously announced plans to develop the center downtown on the old Frank Erwin Center site.
The University of Texas at Austin and MD Anderson Cancer Center may develop their new medical complex in Northwest Austin, a potential change to the institutions’ original plans to bring a “state-of-the-art” hospital and research campus downtown on the former Frank Erwin Center site.
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.
