Children's Health New Pediatric Campus — Dallas

Children’s Health and UT Southwestern Medical Center’s new pediatric campus in Dallas is one of the largest single hospital builds underway in the United States. The $5 billion project will replace the existing Children’s Medical Center Dallas with 4.7 million square feet of new construction across the Southwestern Medical District. HKS and Perkins&Will are leading the design team, with McCarthy Vaughn Partnership as construction manager at risk. Construction began in the second half of 2024.

Project Scope

The program is anchored by a new 552-bed pediatric hospital with a Level I pediatric trauma center carrying 90 emergency-department exam rooms and 24 observation rooms. A fetal-care center is integrated into the hospital tower to deliver complex maternal-fetal services in one location — a notable shift from the more common pattern of splitting maternal and pediatric care across separate buildings.

A new outpatient building on the campus adds 96 exam rooms, separating ambulatory volume from inpatient circulation. A connector bridge ties the new pediatric campus directly to UT Southwestern’s William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital, allowing seamless coordination of adult specialty consults and high-acuity transfers without requiring an external ambulance run.

Design is being executed jointly by HKS and Perkins&Will, with GSR Andrade Architects and Post L Group as HUB partners. The CMAR delivery is being run by McCarthy Vaughn Partnership — a joint operating partnership between McCarthy Building Companies and Vaughn Construction that has handled multiple major Texas medical-center builds.

Why It Matters

Pediatric hospital capacity in north Texas has been constrained for years. The existing Children’s Medical Center Dallas was built across multiple decades of additions, with floor plates, infrastructure, and ICU geometry that don’t reflect contemporary pediatric care delivery. Replacing the campus rather than continuing to renovate it lets HKS and Perkins&Will design for current acuity, contemporary infection-control standards, and the operational realities of pediatric-specific telemetry, imaging, and family-centered care models.

The economic footprint of the build is also significant. At $5 billion and 4.7 million square feet, the project ranks among the largest single healthcare construction efforts in the country. McCarthy Vaughn’s CMAR scope alone is among the largest healthcare CMAR awards in Texas history, and the project will draw on regional MEP, structural-steel, and medical-equipment trade capacity through the rest of the decade. Opening is expected in 2031 with full operational ramp continuing into 2032.

Project Team & Details