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$125M UTHealth psychiatric hospital breaks ground near Texas Medical Center

The UTHealth Continuum of Care Campus for Behavioral Health — a joint project between the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and the Texas Health and Human Services Commission — broke ground near the Texas Medical Center on June 26.

The new facility is at 5601 W. Leland Anderson St., adjacent to the UTHealth Harris County Psychiatric Center. Both facilities will be managed and staffed by the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth.

The $125 million project is expected to be complete in early 2022. It's the first public mental health hospital built in Houston in more than 30 years, and the combined campus is expected to create the largest academic psychiatric hospital in the country, according to a press release.

Houston Airport System to break ground on Spaceport project

Phase 1 of the Houston Spaceport is slated to break ground on June 28.

The Houston Airport System will celebrate the groundbreaking of phase 1 — an $18.8 million project — with a ceremony at Ellington Airport at 13150 Space Center Blvd. The scope of the project’s first phase includes streets, water, wastewater, electrical power and distribution, fiber optics and communications facilities, according to a June 26 media advisory from HAS. The first phase will also include the construction of 53,000 square feet of lab and office space, according to the HAS website. Some 154 acres of land are set aside for phase 1.

Texas Sterling-Banicki JV LLC, a joint venture, is developing the infrastructure for the spaceport, according to a building permit filed with the city of Houston and previous Houston Business Journal reporting. JV partners Houston-based Texas Sterling Construction Co. and Phoenix-based Banicki Construction are both subsidiaries of The Woodlands-based Sterling Construction Company Inc. (Nasdaq: STRL). More than $13.1 million of the $18.8 million will cover TSB’s preconstruction and design services as well as construction services for the infrastructure work.

The first company to sign on as a spaceport tenant — Houston-based Intuitive Machines — is already underway on lunar lander and drone technology. On May 31, Intuitive Machines received a $77.2 million contract from NASA to develop, launch and land its Nova-C spacecraft on the lunar surface. The company is on track to be the first private U.S. firm to land a spacecraft on the moon during a planned 2021 mission.