The University of Texas at Austin’s planned academic medical complex, which includes an MD Anderson Cancer Center location, will no longer be built at the site of the former Frank Erwin Center. It will instead be built at a site near the Domain in North Austin, UT Board of Regents Chairman Kevin Eltife announced Wednesday.
“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 site,” Eltife said at a board meeting.
He said the new site, located west of UT’s J.J. Pickle Research Campus, “makes all the sense in the world” for the medical complex.
Eltife first indicated late last year that UT Austin and MD Anderson leaders were considering moving the project. He said there is currently no concrete plan for the Erwin Center site, but that UT Austin President Jim Davis would announce an alternative direction for the site in the future.
“We couldn't be more excited about bringing this project forward, uniting UT MD Anderson's renowned cancer care with UT Austin's academic medical center and world class research enterprise,” Eltife said, calling the project “a once in a generation opportunity to define the future health care of Texas.”
The medical center complex is set to be complete by 2030.
This is a developing story.
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