Plans Unveiled for UT-Austin Dell Medical School

By Andrew Roush in 40 Acres on May 8, 2013 at 10:13 am | 2 Comments

The UT System Board of Regents is set to approve plans for the new UT-Austin Dell Medical School.

Editor’s Note: This article has been updated from its original, and its headline has been changed. One important point of clarification: the plans for the medical school do not precipitate the demolition of the Erwin Center, though the wider campus master plan calls for the building being moved or replaced eventually.

A Board of Regents committee today tentatively approved plans for academic and research buildings for the new UT-Austin Dell Medical School, slated to open in 2016. The board will consider the proposal in full session tomorrow.

The provisions for the medical school are phase one of a three-phase master plan, which details possible future construction along Red River Street, all the way from Mike A. Myers Stadium south to 12th Street. The proposed medical district would eventually include a new Seton hospital, academic and research buildings, parking, and a new psychiatric hospital and cancer center, according to the plans released Wednesday.

Construction would integrate some existing structures, like the School of Nursing, and could eventually eliminate others, like the 35 year-old Erwin Center. The multipurpose arena, which hosts UT basketball, concerts, and special events, could be moved or removed in the next six to 15 years.

The plans indicate construction on the site of what is now Centennial Park and the Penick-Allison Tennis Center in phase one. UT tennis teams currently use the new UT Tennis Club in addition to the Penick-Allison facility. It remains to be seen where men’s and women’s basketball teams would play if the long-term proposals in the master plan came to fruition, or how the Erwin Center—a self-sustaining unit of the University—would adapt.

UT architecture professor Larry Speck told KUT News that the athletics department was considering potential solutions.

View the plans here.

Tags: Dell School of Medicine, Frank Erwin Center, UT M.D., UT System Board of Regents