Methodist Healthcare System is planning a new freestanding emergency room and outpatient clinic at the corner of South Zarzamora Street and Southwest Loop 410 as the system looks to expand access points on the South Side.
The medical center includes an $8.5 million, 11-bed freestanding ER totaling over 11,000 square feet. A three-story, 60,000 square-foot medical office building will offer outpatient specialty care next door.
The project marks Methodist’s 12th freestanding ER in San Antonio, which operate as extensions of full-scale hospital trauma centers. The new freestanding ER, branded as Methodist ER Palo Alto, is planned to open in early 2028.
The new freestanding ER will be associated with Methodist Hospital Metropolitan, where patients with higher-level needs will be transferred. The downtown hospital is currently undergoing a $200 million expansion.
Greg Seiler, Methodist Hospital Metropolitan CEO, said that this location will serve an area that lost access to care when Texas Vista Medical Center closed in 2023. San Antonio’s South Side faces significant health disparities and less access to care compared to the northern half of the city.
“We know that there’s a need,” Seiler said, “an even greater need now. In addition to that, this is an area that is just growing dramatically.”
The South Side population has grown significantly in the last few decades alongside the expanding footprint of manufacturers like Toyota and JCB.
Methodist maintains two other Southside facilities: a freestanding ER at Brooks and an urgent care in San Antonio’s Southeast neighborhood. Methodist Healthcare System is a 50-50 partnership between Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas and HCA Healthcare, operating a total of 11 hospitals in the San Antonio area.
The county-owned hospital system, University Health, is building Palo Alto Hospital not too far away across from Texas A&M San Antonio’s campus, planned to open in 2027. The public hospital opened an adjacent outpatient clinic, the Vida clinic, late last year.
The new Methodist project is aligned with the larger trend of systems being “less hospital-centric” and more focused on outpatient care, Seiler said.
“There’s more and more things that can be done on an outpatient basis and in clinics and in an ambulatory setting, as opposed to a full-blown hospital,” he said. “From an efficiency standpoint, if it can be done outside the hospital, we want to provide it in these types of [outpatient] settings.”
