Leaders to host grand opening for $305M Austin State Hospital next week

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Austin and state leaders will host a ribbon-cutting Wednesday as the new 240-bed replacement facility for Austin State Hospital is set to open after years of work and hundreds of millions of dollars spent.

According to a release, the Texas Legislature and Gov. Greg Abbott approved roughly $305 million for the new psychiatric hospital, which will replace the facility that's been open since 1861.

According to a release, that hospital offers inpatient mental health services to people in 26 counties. It also offers services for youth in 77 counties throughout Central Texas.

The new building will be 375,000 square feet with 240 rooms, giving each patient their own room and bathroom, KXAN has previously reported.

Construction of the facility took into account research on what has been shown to be effective in helping people recover from mental health disturbances, project officials said.

There will be lots of natural light, therapy rooms, classrooms, exercise rooms, an arts and crafts room and other therapy spaces throughout the facility. Patients will also have access to social interaction spaces, such as a cafe and a bank, designed to help them prepare for life outside of the facility, the project leaders told us last year. 

Desperate need for more beds

KXAN reported last year that the waitlist to enter Texas’ mental hospitals is historically high, with thousands of mentally incompetent people sitting in jail for months or years in need of treatment.

While the new facility does not increase the number of beds, the number of counties this hospital will serve has decreased. 

The Austin State Hospital is part of a larger system of state hospitals the Texas Legislature has recently pumped funding into. The Austin State Hospital project is one of seven renovations. Houston recently opened its state hospital, and Dallas has received funding for one, Austin State Hospital officials said. 

Following the addition of new state hospitals, the number of counties the Austin State Hospital serves has gone down from 38 counties to 26. 

Still, Austin leaders like Mayor Kirk Watson are already looking at ways to expand capacity at the new facility. The mayor previously floated the idea of therapeutic housing near the hospital to serve the people moving in and out of that facility.

It could be an option for people who have nowhere else to go but aren’t quite ready for a full hospitalization. And for patients transitioning out of care who are experiencing homelessness, a possible lifeline.

“What that will do is not only better stabilize people that are addressing a brain health issue that are living on the street homeless, but what it will also do is it will create even more beds at the state hospital,” he said.