Leander - Liberty Hill Edition | March 2026

Health care

BY GRACE DICKENS & BEN THOMPSON

UT Medical Center shifts from downtown to Northwest Austin

Diving in deeper

What’s next

Nearly 400 acres of UT land in North Austin is set to be rezoned for research and science uses, a move that would clear the way for the future UT Medical Center’s development in Northwest Austin. First announced in 2023, the new medical center includ- ing a UT hospital and MD Anderson Cancer Center is envisioned as a multibillion-dollar addition to UT’s academic health system. The project was originally planned for the former Frank Erwin Center site on 19 acres of UT Austin’s downtown campus o I-35. Further details about the medical center project, such as its exact location or scope, haven’t been released as of early 2026. For now, UT is seeking to rezone several of its properties near The Domain, including the Pickle campus, specically for research and science uses. Eltife said the UT Medical Center would be situ- ated west of the Pickle campus. University-owned land in that area includes The Shops at Arbor Walk retail plaza, an oce building at Braker Lane and

MoPac, and undeveloped land o Braker and Stonelake Boulevard. Those properties cover about 374 acres and are all included in the zoning case moving through city reviews. Austin’s Planning Commission advanced the rezoning item Feb. 24, and City Council is now scheduled to consider the request in late March. A UT representative declined to comment about the zoning case or its impact on the medical center project after the commission’s vote. The current process covers ve tracts that currently hold industrial, institutional and mixed- use zoning. The change would label them all as Research and Sciences Mixed Use, or RSMU, in the area’s North Burnet/Gateway Regulating Plan. The zoning case is progressing as UT Austin embarks on its rst campus master plan initiative in over a decade, a project aimed at “building cohesive connections” between the main downtown campus and other properties, according to the university’s Feb. 23 announcement.

The medical center still plans to open in 2030, despite the new location, and will still be in partnership with MD Anderson. There are currently no plans for the Erwin Center site, Eltife said.

Ocials conrmed Feb. 18 that the University of Texas Medical Center will be located in Northwest Austin rather than at the former Erwin Center site downtown. “As our two institutions continued to work collaboratively over the last year, it became apparent that the proposed Erwin Center location would not be as conducive to the fully integrated, patient-centered approach that was being envisioned, and there would be limits to future growth on that,” UT Board of Regents chairman Kevin Eltife said at a Feb. 18 board meeting. The new site, anchored by Dell Medical School, will be located west of the J.J. Pickle Research Campus on university-owned land in Northwest Austin, although a specic site was not conrmed. Of the several university-owned plots of land in the area, one holds The Shops at Arbor Walk, while another has part of the Braker Lane Crossing shopping center.

Key

Research and Science Mixed Use zoning 1 West Pickle Research Building 2 JJ Pickle Research Campus 3 The Shops at Arbor Walk

North Austin

“We have a generational opportunity to reimagine what it means to be a patient, to train future doctors, and to innovate and build for a future shaped by the greatest acceleration in knowledge and technology in human history.” DR. CLAUDIA LUCCHINETTI, UT’S SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT FOR MEDICAL AFFAIRS AND THE DEAN OF DELL MEDICAL SCHOOL

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MOPAC

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