The Frank Erwin Center will be torn down to make room for a new hospital, the University of Texas System Board of Regents announced on Monday afternoon.
The hospital will officially be named The University of Texas at Austin Medical Center. It will be built on campus in partnership with Houston-based cancer treatment center MD Anderson, which recently ranked No. 1 in the nation for cancer treatment.
“Our faculty, staff, students, and graduates are changing health for the better, not just at Dell Med [...] but across our entire campus,” UT President Jay Hartzell said in a press conference yesterday. “UT Austin Medical Center will enable us to bring the full strength and might of a world class research university to bear on healthcare and life sciences.”
University officials announced the Frank Erwin Center would be demolished — a process that is scheduled to be completed by fall 2024 — to make way for an expansion of Dell Medical School almost 10 years ago. The Moody Center opened to replace the former basketball facility in April 2022.
The project will include a second hospital tower, which will hold a new UT Austin specialty University Hospital, in addition to the MD Anderson-run hospital. Opening the facilities will cost approximately $2.5 billion.
UT MD Anderson President Peter Pisters said the hospital will have 150 inpatient beds, 230+ outpatient exam rooms, a chemotherapy infusion unit, and diagnostic imaging. Peter anticipates the facility will create thousands of jobs.
The hospital will be just a stone’s throw away from the Dell Medical Center, at 1701 Red River St., in the heart of Austin’s “Innovation District.”
“We will bring the same practice changing paradigm shifting treatments to our Austin Cancer Center, making more treatments of tomorrow available to patients today,” Pisters said. “Austin deserves a first-class medical center to serve the people and businesses in this community.”