{"id":124384,"date":"2026-01-15T15:07:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T15:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/124384\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T15:07:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T15:07:07","slug":"texas-billionaires-gift-100m-to-planned-ut-med-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/124384\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas billionaires gift $100M to planned UT med center"},"content":{"rendered":"

The University of Texas at Austin\u2019s planned multibillion-dollar medical center, which will include a hospital run by Houston\u2019s University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, just received a $100 million boost from a billionaire husband-and-wife duo.<\/p>\n

Tench Coxe, a former venture capitalist who\u2019s a major shareholder in chipmaking giant Nvidia, and Simone Coxe, co-founder and former CEO of the Blanc & Otus PR firm, contributed the $100 million<\/a>\u2014one of the largest gifts in UT history. The Coxes live in Austin.<\/p>\n

\u201cGreat medical care changes lives,\u201d says Simone Coxe, \u201cand we want more people to have access to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The University of Texas System announced the medical center<\/a> project in 2023 and cited an estimated price tag of $2.5 billion. UT initially said the medical center would be built on the site of the Frank Erwin Center, a sports and entertainment venue on the UT Austin campus that was demolished in 2024. The 20-acre site, north of downtown and the state Capitol, is near Dell Seton Medical Center, UT Dell Medical School and UT Health Austin.<\/p>\n

Now, UT officials are considering a bigger, still-unidentified site near the Domain mixed-use district in North Austin, although they haven\u2019t ruled out the Erwin Center site. The Domain development is near St. David\u2019s North Medical Center.<\/p>\n

As originally planned, the medical center would house a cancer center built and operated by MD Anderson and a specialty hospital built and operated by UT Austin. Construction on the two hospitals is scheduled to start this year and be completed in 2030. According to a 2025 bid notice for contractors, each hospital is expected to encompass about 1.5 million square feet<\/a>, meaning the medical center would span about 3 million square feet.<\/p>\n

Features of the MD Anderson hospital<\/a> will include:<\/p>\n

Inpatient careOutpatient clinicsSurgery suitesRadiation, chemotherapy, cell, and proton treatmentsDiagnostic imagingClinical drug trials<\/p>\n

UT says the new medical center will fuse the university\u2019s academic and research capabilities with the medical and research capabilities of MD Anderson and Dell Medical School.<\/p>\n

UT officials say priorities for spending the Coxes\u2019 gift include:<\/p>\n

Recruiting world-class medical professionals and scientistsSupporting constructionInvesting in technologyExpanding community programs that promote healthy living and access to care<\/p>\n

Tench says the opportunity to contribute to building an institution from the ground up helped prompt the donation. He and others say that thanks to MD Anderson\u2019s participation, the medical center will bring world-renowned cancer care to the Austin area.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a close friend who had to travel to Houston for care she should have been able to get here at home. \u2026 Supporting the vision for the UT medical center is exactly the opportunity Austin needed,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The rate of patients who leave the Austin area to seek care for serious medical issues runs as high as 25 percent, according to UT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The University of Texas at Austin\u2019s planned multibillion-dollar medical center, which will include a hospital run by Houston\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,53852,133,53854,32989,11940,18024,52877,53853,14969,4100,53851,53756,25609],"class_list":["post-124384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-med-center","tag-austin-news","tag-dell-seton-medical-center","tag-md-anderson","tag-medical-center","tag-nvidia","tag-simone-coxe","tag-tench-coxe","tag-texas-medical-center","tag-university-of-texas","tag-university-of-texas-austin-med-center","tag-ut-dell-medical-school","tag-ut-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}