A mock-up acute patient room is seen from a window at a nurse’s station for UT Southwestern and Children’s Health’s new $5 billion pediatric campus in Dallas, Monday, March 30, 2026.
Angela Piazza/The Dallas Morning News
Dallas’ new children’s hospital is still five years away from opening, but hospital leaders this week offered a peek at what the inside of the building will look like.
Moody Children’s Hospital is a project of UT Southwestern Medical Center and Children’s Health. The new campus is a $5 billion construction project that aims to open a 552-bed children’s hospital in 2031.
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This week, hospital and project leaders showcased two mock-up rooms — one operating room and one patient room — to a major donor. The mock-up rooms were built inside another building, about a mile and a half from the new campus’ construction site on Harry Hines Boulevard.
The tour of the mock-up rooms was held for Lyndal Stephens Greth and other representatives of The Stephens Greth Foundation, which has committed $100 million to the project. Greth, a multibillionaire, is the daughter of the late oil and gas mogul Autry Stephens.
The Dallas Morning News also joined the tour, which was led by UT Southwestern Medical Center President Dr. Daniel Podolsky and Children’s Health President and CEO Christopher Durovich.
Stephens Greth Foundation board members from left, Richard Greth, wife and board chairman Lyndal Stephens Greth, Joe O’Brien, Kevin Keen and Children’s Health President and CEO Christopher Durovich tour a mock-up inpatient room for UT Southwestern and Children’s Health’s new $5 billion pediatric campus in Dallas, Monday, March 30, 2026. The foundation committed $100 million to the project.
Angela Piazza/The Dallas Morning News
The rooms — which hospital leaders referred to as “training rooms,” where staff, patients and others can test the design and setup — give a strong sense of what the inside of the hospital itself will look like when fully constructed.
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Durovich and Podolsky highlighted the new hospital’s intentional design elements.
UT Southwestern Medical Center President Dr. Daniel Podolsky listens to Dr. Maeve Sheehan talk about the design of a mock-up acute patient room for UT Southwestern and Children’s Health’s new $5 billion pediatric campus in Dallas, Monday, March 30, 2026.
Angela Piazza/The Dallas Morning News
The mock patient room, for instance, features a built-in storage unit large enough for a family’s roller bag and a sofa that can sleep two people. The room has floor-to-ceiling windows — with adjustable shades when needed — and a bump-out in one of the windows that project leaders call “the perch.”
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The perch allows a child or family member to step “into” the window, looking out at a view of Dallas. In the fully built hospital, each room’s perch will also be visible from the perch in the next room over. That will allow patients, when each standing in their room’s perch, to wave to one another from a room away.
The Stephens Greth Foundation board listens to Children’s Health President and CEO Christopher Durovich talk about the design of a mock-up acute patient room for UT Southwestern and Children’s Health’s new $5 billion pediatric campus in Dallas, Monday, March 30, 2026. To the right of Durovich, UT Southwestern Medical Center President Dr. Daniel Podolsky, center, and foundation board member Dan Odom also listen.
Angela Piazza/The Dallas Morning News
“This hospital is going to be a technological wonder,” Podolsky said on the tour. “But some of the most important features are not technology as we normally think about it.”
The mock rooms have also illuminated some needed changes that will carry through to the completed hospital, the project leaders said.
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UTSW President Dr. Daniel Podolsky helps lead a tour of the still-under-construction children’s hospital that included a peek of the campus’ patient and surgical rooms.
Angela Piazza/The Dallas Morning News
For instance, the mock operating room has a gray floor with the operating area outlined in red. However, project leaders learned through the mock room that dropped needles are nearly impossible to spot on that red outline, said Dr. Maeve Sheehan, a pediatric ICU physician and the physician executive for the project.
The Stephens Greth Foundation board tours a mock-up of a specialty operating room for the children’s hospital in Dallas. The foundation committed $100 million to the project.
Angela Piazza/The Dallas Morning News
To fix that, the actual operating rooms won’t have the red outline on the floor, and the operating area will likely instead be delineated with a lighter gray color.
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UTSW President Dr. Daniel Podolsky talks about the mock-up specialty operating room. The mock-ups are referred to as training rooms, where staff, patients and others can test the design and setup
Angela Piazza/The Dallas Morning News
Greth said she was struck by the thoughtfulness behind the design choices in the new hospital. She said she’s seen a lot of presentations for various projects, but this one stood out. The foundation’s large financial commitment, Greth said, was a “no-brainer.”
“My big credential is that I’m a mom, above anything,” she said. “This hospital helps the children right here in our community. This just felt like a very easy yes.”
The Stephens Greth Foundation’s commitment is the fourth gift of $100 million or more to the hospital project, according to the hospital systems. The previous large commitments were from the Moody Foundation, The Rees-Jones Foundation and the Pogue Foundation.
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Stephens Greth Foundation board members Joe O’Brien (from left), Lyndal Stephens Greth and husband Richard Greth tour mock-up specialty operating room.
Angela Piazza/The Dallas Morning News
Children’s and UT Southwestern have pointed to Dallas-Fort Worth’s explosive population growth as a primary driver of the new children’s hospital.
“We live in a community that is one of the five fastest growing communities in the United States,” Durovich said. “This is the most appropriate time for us to begin to think about how we can be of service to those kids and families.”
The new facility will have about 60 more patient beds than the current children’s hospital, Children’s Medical Center Dallas. The new campus will also add more maternal and fetal care capabilities, according to the Children’s Health website, along with state-of-the-art technology.
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The current campus, which opened in 1967, is nearing the end of its lifespan, Durovich said.
Once the new hospital opens, it will replace the current campus as the primary location of the children’s hospital. Durovich said the future use of the current campus has not yet been determined.
The new hospital, Durovich said, remains on budget and on schedule for an opening in the second quarter of 2031.