Final steel beam signed and placed in topping out ceremony for new University Health Retama Hospital project
Almost 200 people gathered on Bexar County’s far North Side to sign the final steel beam and watch a crane loft it onto the top floor of University Health’s 5-story community hospital and medical office building. On track to open in Selma in early 2027 next to Retama Park, Retama Hospital will be a full-service hospital, operating 24/7 and equipped with all of the latest medical technologies.
Investment in health, community and economy
University Health President and CEO Ed Banos welcomed the large crowd, highlighting the impact of the new facility on both the health of the community and the local economy. Within its first three years of operation, University Health Retama Hospital will employ about 1,000 doctors, nurses, pharmacists, other health care professionals and support staff. Banos also noted that 80% of the work on the $750 million construction project has been completed by local businesses, sub-contractors and suppliers.
Joining the University Health team for this event were representatives from project architect Marmon Mok, project manager Broaddus & Associates and Layton Construction. Bexar County Precinct 4 Commissioner Tommy Calvert also helped celebrate this milestone, joined by elected officials, fire and EMS leaders, chamber representatives and community members from the Selma, Schertz, Cibolo and Live Oak communities.
A mission on the move
Retama Hospital is one of two identical community hospitals University Health is building. Also on track to open in 2027 is University Health Palo Alto Hospital and medical office building, across from Texas A&M San Antonio on the far South Side. Both of these hospitals are part of University Health’s hub-and-spoke development strategy that creates community hospitals in fast-growing areas, while the Medical Center-based University Hospital and University Health Women’s & Children’s Hospital remain available for the highest levels of specialized care, like Level I trauma care and organ transplantation.
Banos said the pandemic drove that lesson home.
“What we saw during COVID is that having a single hospital without having a community hospital can hamper us in times of need in making sure patients have access close to home,” he said.
Answering the community’s call
Calvert expressed his excitement in seeing progress his constituents have been calling for.
“This hospital didn’t start with blueprints or budgets,” he told the crowd. “It started with a voice. Maria Lopez—wife of Judge Rogelio Lopez—shared a truth with me back in 2015. She said, ‘Commissioner, there’s a whole part of the county that pays into the system but doesn’t get the same access to care.’
So I looked into it. We mapped it out using GIS data. And what we found was clear—if you lived north of IH-10, it was an 11-to-14-mile drive before you could reach a University Health facility. I am proud to say that as of today, that is no longer true.”
University Health Retama will include a 24/7 emergency department, advanced operating suites, radiology, laboratory, pharmacy, labor and delivery, neonatal intensive care unit/nursery and inpatient units. The medical office building will have suites available for physicians to establish a presence adjacent to the hospital. Both hospitals will have an “open medical staff,” which means community physicians will be able to apply for admitting privileges, giving people more flexibility to stay with their providers and still get hospital care close to home.
Coming even sooner to East and South Sides
Even closer to completion are University Health Vida, the primary care and multispecialty health center on the Palo Alto Campus, and University Health Wheatley, the primary care and multispecialty health center on the East Side. Both will open in late 2025.
