I have good news to share related to our efforts to expand our capacity to fulfill our education, research and patient care missions. Today, UTMB signed the lease and took possession of the hospital facility formerly known as Bay Area Regional Medical Center in Webster.

In August we announced our letter of intent to lease the facility, which first opened in 2014 but closed earlier this year. With this agreement formally in place, we now have a UTMB Health Clear Lake Campus to join our network of campuses in Galveston, Angleton Danbury and League City.

This is a tremendous opportunity for us to advance UTMB’s mission in a dynamic area, and it gives us even greater ability to provide health care services for a region that is one of the fastest growing in Texas.

We will be working with area physicians and our faculty to determine staffing requirements, evaluate and calibrate existing equipment, and decide which services will be offered on the new campus. No specific opening date is set, but we hope to see our first patient at the Clear Lake Campus by spring 2019.

In addition to our new campus, we will continue with the League City Hospital expansion and the John Sealy Hospital modernization in Galveston. Both of these projects will be completed in 2020. We also will open the new Health Education Center in Galveston in 2019.

This is an exciting time for our university and our mission. We’ll share more details about the Clear Lake Campus as plans are finalized. In the meantime, thank you for everything you do for the people we serve.