University Health officials plan on moving specialty care and several clinics to the shuttered CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Hospital in the medical center that could soon become the system’s “Babcock Specialty Hospital.”

The goal is to decompress the volume of patients at University Health’s main hospital, not too far from the vacant CHRISTUS hospital.

University Health entered into a $71 million deal in July with CHRISTUS to purchase its 45-acre Santa Rosa Hospital campus in the South Texas Medical Center.

In April, the Catholic nonprofit hospital operator closed the location, which had seen patients for 38 years, citing an “internal performance evaluation.” The hospital’s closure came with the loss of 174 inpatient beds and 479 jobs. CHRISTUS opened a new tower at its new Westover Hills hospital in the spring, which they said replaced the lost beds.

San Antonio has seen major hospital closures in recent years, including the privately-owned Texas Vista Medical Center (formerly Southwest General Hospital) in 2023 and the historic Nix Hospital overlooking the River Walk in 2019.

At the same time, Bexar County’s public health system has grown rapidly. The CHRISTUS purchase comes amid University Health’s $1.5 billion expansion, which includes the construction of two five-story hospitals on the Southwest and Northeast sides of San Antonio.

CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Medical Center Tower I and the main hospital building on Aug. 10, 2025 in the South Texas Medical Center. Credit: Vincent Reyna for the San Antonio Report

‘Bursting at the seams’

Roughly 10 years ago, University Hospital averaged 458 patients staying in its hospital at any given time. That number has jumped to a little under 800 patients in 2025.

Even compared to last year, births have increased by 36%, surgeries by 12% and emergency room visits by 9%.

That growth is being fueled by population growth across South Texas, more people traveling from across the state for specialty procedures, and the opening of University Health’s Women’s and Children’s Hospital in 2023, which came with 298 new beds.

University Health gets about 10,000 calls in a calendar year from smaller hospitals across South Texas for patient transfers. But the hospital can only accept a little over half of them.

“Every time we build a new tower, it fills up,” University Health director of external communications Elizabeth Allen said. “We’re bursting at the seams.”

The former CHRISTUS hospital is licensed for 154 beds and 20 intensive care unit beds. But the new facility isn’t likely to have that many.

University Health’s Babcock Specialty Hospital will be focused on outpatient visits and specialty care to free up space and resources at the main campus on 4502 Medical Drive.

University Health has not decided which specialty services and clinics would be moved to Babcock Specialty Hospital. But the main hospital currently houses clinics focused on diabetes and endocrinology, heart and vascular care, organ transplants and several pediatric specialties. It’s also an academic medical institution, so hundreds of medical school students, many from UT Health San Antonio, work in the hospital.

“We have a population that keeps coming to the hospital to get just single tests … and that brings a lot of cars and a lot of congestion to our medical center hospital,” University Health president and CEO Ed Banos said. “So we’re hoping that this will decompress the traffic and the parking demands.”

People in wheelchairs and older folks also have to make a long trek to some areas of University Health’s main hospital, which wouldn’t be the case at the former CHRISTUS building located at 2827 Babcock Rd.

“We think that that’s a much more convenient, patient-friendly facility to do specialty outpatient work,” Banos added.

‘A herculean effort’

The purchase is not yet final. Banos expects it to close by September or October. Once it’s official, they will have to go through a relicensing process with the state.

The earliest the hospital could open is early 2026, but no firm date has been set. University Health’s other two new hospitals that are underway are set to open in 2027.

University Health’s purchase will include the shuttered four-story, 236,000-square-foot acute care hospital, two medical buildings, private office buildings that will remain occupied, and a five-acre solar farm that CHRISTUS built but never got to use.

University Health plans on purchasing 45 acres of medical campus from CHRISTUS for $71 million. The property includes a shuttered four-story acute care hospital, other medical buildings, private medical offices and a solar farm. Courtesy / University Health

University Health officials presented their plans to county leaders during a Bexar County Commissioners Court meeting on Aug. 5. Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Calvert described getting all three hospitals staffed in a short amount of time as “a herculean effort.”

“I will say, in my whole career, this is abnormal,” Banos told the commissioners. “You do not see three hospitals opening up within a year, year and a half of each other.”

Health care jobs in the U.S. have largely bounced back from massive losses in 2020 due to the pandemic, according to a University of Michigan research paper published in June. However, skilled nursing facilities and intensive behavioral health centers are still struggling with the staff shortages that began during the pandemic, the study found.

The Babcock Specialty Hospital will open with about 125 employees. The Palo Alto and Retama hospitals will open with about 450 new employees each.

“We’re going to get it done,” Banos assured the commissioners.