After a 4-year coma and slow recovery, the Baylor College of Medicine’s McNair Campus at the corner of Cambridge St. and Old Spanish Tr. may be back on track to eventually lead a normal life — new renderings released late last week to Joe Martin of the HBJ show the next phase of construction for what is now being called the Baylor College of Medicine Medical Center facility. Following a bleed-out of construction financing and subsequent failed merger negotiations between Baylor and Rice University, the building’s shell was completed in early 2010 and sat empty until a partial buildout gave the structure new life in late 2013.

St. Luke’s (owned by Catholic Health Initiatives) teamed up with Baylor shortly thereafter and made plans to move its Texas Medical Center hospital operations to the new facility. The Texas Heart Institute, which operates independently in St. Luke’s existing building,  will also be transplanted into the new facility.

The newly released site plan ties in to the double-helix-reminiscent campus recently proposed by the TMC for the parking lot next door — the campus is shown at the top of the site plan below:

***

The next phase of addition includes a second tower, which will rise above the existing structure and house an additional 420 inpatient beds. Another (shorter) building of medical offices is planned to the north (in green). A skybridge running along the southern face of the parking garage expansion (in reddish-pink above) could someday connect the hospital structures to the proposed campus across Staffordshire to the east. Groundbreaking on the new additions is expected early next year.

• Exclusive: Expansion plans revealed for Baylor, CHI St. Luke’s McNair campus [HBJ]
• Previously on Swamplot: Unraveling the Structure of the Double Helix Campus Proposed for the Texas Medical Center; Baylor College of Medicine Filling Its Unfinished Hospital Building by Pulling St. Luke’s South from the TMC; Baylor and Rice: The Deal Is Officially Dead; Rice-Baylor Merger: Yup; Baylor Hospital: Internal Organ Failure

Renderings: HKS