Care, Dignity, Education and Innovation will Guide New Seton Medical Center at UT

AUSTIN, Texas — Construction of Seton Medical Center at The University of Texas, Seton Healthcare Family’s $295-million, 211-bed teaching hospital, started with the unveiling of four philosophical cornerstones that will guide its operations: improving medical care; respect and dignity for patients and their families; educating the next generation of clinicians and innovating through both practice and research.

Seton Medical Center at UT will open in 2017 on the northwest corner of Red River and 15th streets. Across Red River, on the northeast corner, The University of Texas at Austin’s Dell Medical School already is under construction and scheduled to open in 2016. Both buildings will be located on a new medical campus that also will accommodate medical school classrooms, faculty and physician offices and research facilities. The other buildings will surround Seton Medical Center at UT and stretch from Interstate Highway 35 west to Trinity Street.

Seton, which is investing $245 million in the project and raising another $50 million through philanthropy, will own and operate the new hospital. It will be built on land owned by UT-Austin and leased to Central Health, Travis County’s healthcare district, which will sub-lease the land to Seton at fair market value.

Like the medical school, Seton’s teaching hospital is part of Texas State Sen. Kirk Watson’s bold 10 Goals in 10 Years initiative to improve community health infrastructure. The hospital will replace University Medical Center Brackenridge, erected in the 1970s and not designed to meet the operational needs of a 21st century teaching hospital. Central Health, which owns UMC Brackenridge, is working with the community to determine how best to repurpose the hospital.

The combination of a new teaching hospital and medical school on the campus of a major research university is expected to create 15,000 new jobs, not including construction jobs.

JE Dunn Construction is the general contractor for the project. HKS is the lead architect.