Methodist Hospital in Stone Oak broke ground Wednesday on a $104 million expansion that will bring new beds, expanded parking and other improvements to the far north central part of San Antonio.
The hospital is adding two floors and over 80,000 square feet of additional space, renovating its kitchen and expanding parking capacity. Officials say 54 new patient beds will be added, bringing the hospital’s total number of beds to 299.
“This part of San Antonio is growing very, very rapidly,” Michael Beaver, the hospital’s CEO, said at a groundbreaking ceremony. “We are committed to keep pace with that.”
Of the 54 new beds, 40 will be designated for telemetry, which are able to continuously monitor vitals of patients with heart disease. The remaining 14 beds will be cardiac intensive care unit beds.
Beaver said that the hospital is seeing a lot of demand in the community for treatment of cardiovascular disease, which includes heart disease, heart failure, stroke and atrial fibrillation or AFib.
Bexar County has a heart disease death rate of 347 out of 100,000 people, aged 35 or older, which is just above the national rate of 325, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Stone Oak hospital was built in 2009 and has seen several add-ons within the last year, including an emergency room expansion, new cardiac MRI machine, a new electrophysiology lab and a new cardiac catheterization lab.
The Stone Oak location is one of 11 hospitals in the San Antonio area operated by Methodist Healthcare, which is a 50-50 partnership between Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas and HCA Healthcare, the nation’s largest provider of health care services.
Methodist’s largest hospital has nearly 1,000 beds and is located in the South Texas Medical Center.
Officials expect the major construction, which includes adding a fifth and sixth floor to the Stone Oak hospital’s west tower, to wrap up by early 2027. The sixth floor will also contain additional space for future expansions and more beds in the future.
“This $104 million investment doesn’t just build a bigger hospital,” City Councilwoman Misty Spears (D-9) said. “It’s building opportunities, for new jobs, for state-of-the-art technology and innovation, and for a healthier more resilient San Antonio.”
