Higher Education

Dallas architecture firm HKS to design new UT Austin teaching hospital

Seton Healthcare Family recently announced plans to build a new state-of-the-art teaching hospital at the University of Texas at Austin. The Dell Medical School will accept its first class in 2016, and the aging Brackenridge Hospital isn't up to the task.

Seton, along with parent company Ascension health, celebrated the news on June 18 with a press conference attended by Texas medical professionals and lawmakers. Texas Sen. Kirk Watson addressed the crowd, complimenting the voting public for choosing to raise taxes on themselves in November 2012 to make the plans for the Dell Medical School and its new teaching hospital a reality.

The teaching hospital comes as a partnership between three organizations: Seton Healthcare Family, Central Health (Travis County's health care district) and the UT Systems. Seton, also home to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center's Austin medical residency programs and Seton/UTSW Clinical Research Institute, will invest $245 million in building the hospital.

Dallas-based architecture firm HKS Inc was selected to lead the project. The firm has vast experience in designing and developing children's hospitals, emergency departments and cancer centers. Among others, HKS built the Connecticut Children's Hospital, Parker Adventist Hospital and the University of Texas at Dallas Center for Brain Health.

"Seton has a track record for opening hospitals on time and within budget," said Charles Barnett, executive board chair of Seton Healthcare Family board of trustees. "What [the three organizations] have done individually is impressive, but what we will be able to do collectively will be transformational."

"The new medical school campus will be part of our academic campus, and this will be a powerful connection," said UT President Bill Powers. "Our medical students will be walking distance from some of the most innovative research in the world — not only in medicine but in pharmacy, chemistry, medical business systems and biomedical engineering."

There are no current plans to demolish Brackenridge Hospital. It will continue to function until the new teaching hospital is built and plans are made to move operations there. After the move, the Brackenridge may be repurposed for other uses yet to be determined.

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Welcome to Texas

Texas remains No. 1 draw for movers despite slowing migration

Welcome to Texas sign

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Texas continues to be the country’s No. 1 magnet for newcomers from other states, giving a boost to the state’s economy. However, Texas’ appeal weakened in 2024 compared with the previous year, due in large part to spiking home prices.

An analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by self-storage platform StorageCafe shows Texas saw net interstate migration of 76,000 people in 2024. Texas’ net interstate migration dropped nearly 50 percent from 2023, according to the analysis. Net migration refers to the number of incoming residents minus the number of outgoing residents.

California remained the top source of newcomers for Texas, sending nearly 77,000 residents to the Lone Star State in 2024, the analysis says. Florida ranked second, followed by New York, Colorado and Illinois.

“These trends reveal Texas’ continued pull from both high-cost coastal markets and other large Sun Belt states, resulting in a mix of affordability-driven and job-driven relocation,” StorageCafe says.

Putting a damper on the influx of new residents: a roughly 124 percent surge in Texas home prices over the past decade, according to StorageCafe.

“While the state remains significantly more affordable than California, its top feeder state, the once-wide pricing gap has narrowed,” says StorageCafe. “For many movers, Texas is still a relative bargain, but no longer an undisputed one.”

Nonetheless, Texas keeps attracting young, highly educated people, which bodes well for the state’s long-term economic outlook, StorageCafe says. More than half of new arrivals to Texas in 2024 held at least a bachelor’s degree, and the age of newcomers averaged 32.

Where are most of these young, highly educated newcomers settling?

Lloyd Potter, former Texas state demographer, tells StorageCafe that population growth in Texas is happening most rapidly in suburban “ring counties” at the expense of slowing growth in urban cores. Ring counties are on the outskirts of major metro areas.

“Many people are moving from urban cores to suburban rings seeking lower costs, newer housing, better schools, and more space,” Potter says. “Typically, a move to a suburban county will be within commuting or hybrid‑commuting distance of major metro economies.”

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This story originally appeared on our sister site, InnovationMap.

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