Dallas’ new children’s hospital is getting another $100 million donation toward the construction of a $5 billion pediatric care facility, Children’s Health and UT Southwestern announced Tuesday.
Children’s Health and UT Southwestern Medical Center are replacing Children’s Medical Center Dallas with a new campus on nearly 34 acres in the Southwestern Medical District, less than 2 miles from the current pediatric facility. It comes as Children’s Medical Center has outgrown its half-century lifespan. The hospital has already expanded to the edge of its plot line and its once cutting-edge designs are aging as new technologies emerge.
The new massive medical facility will be larger than AT&T Stadium, spanning 4.5 million square feet. Construction of the two 12-story towers and an eight-story tower on the corner of Harry Hines Boulevard and Mockingbird Lake is expected to take at least six years to complete.
Children’s Health and UT Southwestern broke ground on the facility Tuesday. In order to get the new campus built, the medical partners are jointly fundraising for the first time.
“Nothing about this project is normal,” said Brent Christopher, president of the Children’s Medical Center Foundation. “The scale and scope is so huge. I think the community sees and understands that we are collaborative partners together and they would expect us to go to the community together to invite charitable support.”
The gift from Jan and Trevor Rees-Jones is the largest grant the oil family’s foundation has ever contributed. Their private foundation works with nonprofits primarily across North Texas but also with groups from around the world.
“The opportunity to give back in such a great way in a city that’s been home to both Trevor and me all our lives … It’s just a great privilege and honor to partner with organizations this good,” Jan Rees-Jones said.
Jan and Trevor Rees-Jones established the foundation out of proceeds from a 2006 sale of their oil and gas business. Chief Oil and Gas sold its properties in the Barnett Shale and its pipeline and midstream assets for more than $2 billion.
The Rees-Jones’ $100 million gift matches that of Jean and Mack Pogue, the late founder of Lincoln Property Co., which was announced in May. The contributions are two of the largest philanthropic gifts of its size publicly announced in North Texas, according to Children’s.
The Rees-Jones Foundation awarded 166 grants last year, funding more than $52 million into nonprofits focused on community benefits, international disability and justice, and child care. The average grant size last year was $337,000.
It’s not the first time the Rees-Jones family has supported the pediatric hospital and its services.
In 2012, their foundation established the Rees-Jones Center for Foster Care Excellence. It’s the only clinic in North Texas to treat the physical and emotional needs of children and youth with experience in the child welfare system.
Previous donations from The Rees-Jones Foundation to Children’s Health have exceeded $35 million, according to Children’s, providing care and services to more than 2,000 children each year.
The new campus responds to an increased demand for care as North Texas’ pediatric population continues to grow. The facility will house 552 beds, more than a third of an increase from the current medical center. It’ll also have an enhanced Level I pediatric trauma center, the only one in the region, with 90 emergency room pods and 24 observation rooms.
The facility also will have a new fetal care center, providing some of the region’s most advanced and accessible services for complex maternal and fetal health care.
“World-class health care isn’t a world away, its here,” said Christopher Durovich, president and CEO of Children’s Health. “Straightforward primary care all the way up to tertiary quaternary care, we’re able to fulfill that spectrum of services here for kids and adolescents in our community.”
As Children’s Medical Center Dallas stands now, the hospital is landlocked, height-restricted by the Federal Aviation Administration and doesn’t have critical space above the ceilings for necessary wiring.
UT Southwestern president Dr. Daniel Podolsky said Dallas’ pediatric hospital has to be in a position to provide care for the present and for the future. When Children’s Medical Center was built some 60 years ago, the technology required wasn’t even imaginable, he said.
“It was clear what the solution was,” Podolsky said. “Which is to find a place you have, essentially, figuratively speaking, a clean sheet of paper, design the hospital that will be best for the kids and their families and one that is forward-looking.”
The central hospital tower at the new Dallas pediatric campus will be named Rees-Jones Tower in recognition of the donation. In addition to patient rooms, the Rees-Jones Tower will be the main hospital entrance and house the lobby and welcome areas for patients and their families.
The Rees-Jones family pledged $100 million before UT Southwestern and Children’s Health could show comprehensive site plans or what the hospital might look like.
All the two institutions could tell the Rees-Joneses was why the UT Southwestern and Children’s Health were coming together to build the campus and that it was critical for the sake of kids and families across North Texas now and for the decades to come, Christopher said.
“Over many years, we’ve had enough experience where we felt comfortable with the leadership and really all of those involved in Children’s Health to be able to make the commitment,” Trevor Rees-Jones said.
Funding for the project will come from a mix of hospital revenues, interest from investments, debt and community support, like philanthropic donations. Children’s and UT Southwestern, which reaffirmed their master agreement in 2019, have not yet launched a public fundraising campaign for the new facility.
Children’s Health Foundation raised more than $600,000 on North Texas Giving Day, according to Christopher.
“It’s a testament to the willingness of people in North Texas to use their resources to make this a healthier, stronger, better place to live,” Christopher said.
