[sirkingwilliam]

This is part of larger medical school campus.

A medical school in the heart of San Antonio’s downtown that would share a campus with a public magnet school for health care careers took a big step forward Monday night. The school would serve, geographically and ecumenically, as the center of a growing downtown medical district by knitting together six different public and private hospitals and clinics.

San Antonio Independent School District trustees voted unanimously at the district’s board meeting Monday to enter into a non-binding agreement with the University of Incarnate Word to lease three acres of the former Fox Tech High School athletic complex as the site for the medical school and a 500-unit parking garage.

Medical presence in the urban core

The UIW medical school would be within easy walking distance of the Children’s Hospital of San Antonio, the Baptist Medical Center, University Health System’s Robert B. Green Clinic, and the city’s Metro Health Clinic. The Nix Medical Center and Metropolitan Methodist Hospital also would be minutes away.

Parking

The city and county will have to buy in at a significant level to make the downtown medical school a reality. Bexar County is being asked to contribute $5 million, half the cost of the $10 million parking garage, with UIW providing the other half for a jointly owned private-public facility. One enticement for the county is the parking garage’s adjacency to the country’s $175 million planned redevelopment of San Pedro Creek. Visitors would be able to park less than a block from the Creek Walk.

Streets

The City is being asked to contribute $7 million for streets, sidewalks and utilities. Under the current proposed plan, a new street would be cut through the former Fox Tech campus, connecting North Flores and Main Streets to Cameron Street and the proposed redeveloped San Pedro Creek, and at the eastern end of the campus to the proposed Romano Circle (see rendering).

Uniqueness

The medical school would be only the second private medical school in the Southwest after Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Rivard Report