Travis County’s local public health district will transform the shuttered Sears store in the Hancock Center into a new medical complex.
Sears operated the Hancock Center store from 1963 to 2019, after the company filed for bankruptcy. The building has remained vacant since its closure.
Central Health, the taxing district that provides health care to low-income Travis County residents, bought the building with plans to turn it into a new administration facility. It will also become the primary administration workplace for Central Health’s health insurance affiliate, Sendero Health Plans, and its clinical partner, CommUnityCare.
The main level of the renovated facility will be dedicated to clinical operations for Central Health and CUC, including primary care and specialty care offerings, as well as imaging and pharmacy services.
“The ground floor of this old department store is about 70,000 square feet of space … so we have a lot of opportunity here to put more care in the right places for our patients,” Central Health CEO Pat Lee said at a groundbreaking event Friday.
The facility will also be the new home for CUC’s David Powell Health Center, a clinic that treats people with HIV. David Powell’s current location off I-35 is closing to make way for the I-35 expansion.
“Our sadness and nostalgia at the loss of our brick and mortar structure up the road here is actually very much tempered by the anticipatory joy we have with moving into this new space,” said Dr. Mike Stefanowicz, director of intensive outpatient clinical programs at the David Powell center.
Central Health’s Hancock Center project is expected to be completed in 2027. Lee said the project represents an investment of more than $150 million.
