Children’s Health announced its plans for a new specialty center at The Shops at RedBird, expanding medical services offered at the southern Dallas mall.
The new location is expected to welcome its first patients in December 2027.
Families will have access to specialty pediatric care, urgent care, primary care and behavioral health services. The space is expected to help serve student athletes and young patients in southern Dallas County.
Children’s Health aims to make life better for kids, and this project “beautifully embodies” that mission, said Dane Peterson, chief operating officer at Children’s Health. He added that its critical services are provided closer to homes in southern Dallas.
“Not having access is the same as not getting good care,” Peterson said.
Residents in southern Dallas have faced higher rates of chronic disease. The distribution of hospitals and doctors has fallen mostly in north Dallas County, above Interstate 30.
In the southwest portion of the county, families could be traveling an average of 10 to 12 miles for outpatient care, Peterson said. The facility aims to create change.
“It is truly an investment in the long-term health, growth and future of the community,” Peterson said.
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State Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, praised the decision from Children’s Health in a statement, calling the announcement a transformative moment.
“It’s a clear signal that the future of our children’s well-being matters — and that access should never be a barrier,” West said.
In a news release, Children’s Health said it will work closely with RedBird and community leaders to ensure the new location meets the needs of families. It will be developed in collaboration with the UT Southwestern Medical Center at RedBird.
The Children’s Health site was previously announced in 2020, and it was planned to share space with UT Southwestern, which sits where there once was a Sears. Now, Children’s Health will take the place of the old Macy’s, with an estimated $25 million renovation.
Peter Brodsky, CEO at RedBird, has been working to transform and reimagine the space amid a national trend of vacancies in aging shopping centers. In recent years, the mall has added medical services, child care, apartments and education resources.
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In addition to the space at the old Sears, Parkland Health opened a clinic at the old Dillard’s. Apartments opened up. This year, the mall got a new day care. It’s also home to a Dallas College workforce center and a Workforce Solutions Greater Dallas center.
Brodsky has argued that people in southern Dallas deserve, and can afford, more high-quality amenities. As North Texas grows, he has said southern Dallas holds untapped potential with a large portion of the city’s population and a large amount of undeveloped land.
Repopulating the mall with medical services could be a catalyst for other amenities, Brodsky said Wednesday. More doctors, nurses and patients will be at the site, driving need for more retail and restaurants, he added.
Brodsky said he didn’t set out to provide medical services in particular, but community members told him there weren’t enough of them. Now, in addition to serving a medical need, the announcement and daytime traffic could drive future growth.
It’s a “win for everybody,” he said.
This reporting is part of the Future of North Texas, a community-funded journalism initiative supported by the Commit Partnership, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Lisa and Charles Siegel, the McCune-Losinger Family Fund, The Meadows Foundation, the Perot Foundation, the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and the University of Texas at Dallas. The News retains full editorial control of this coverage.
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