The Daily Dig
Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth is moving ahead with a major vertical expansion of the John and Jane Justin Tower. The project will add four new floors and relocate the hospital's women's services into a new center. It carries a naming gift from the Jane & John Justin Foundation, which also backed the 2019 gift that helped fund the tower's original construction.
Floors 11 and 12 will become the new Jane and John Justin Center for Women & Infants. The center will house labor and delivery, a nursery, dedicated operating rooms, and antepartum, postpartum, and gynecology rooms. Floors nine and 10 will be built as unfinished shell space, reserved for future needs rather than completed as part of this project.
The expansion also relocates the hospital's Obstetric Emergency Department into Justin Tower with its own dedicated entrance. Justin Tower will stay operational throughout construction, and the full vertical expansion is targeted for completion in 2029. A separate project already underway is finishing the tower's fourth and fifth floors, adding 71 patient rooms and a new Surgical Trauma Progressive Care Unit for patients who need a higher level of care than a general medical surgical unit but don't require the ICU. Those floors are expected to open in 2026.
A third, later project will expand the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit once the main Justin Tower expansion is complete. That project will add 32 private beds, bringing total NICU capacity from 54 to 86, and is expected to open in 2030. The unit will stay connected to Cook Children's Medical Center by the existing sky bridge. Justin Tower opened in April 2022, adding 144 patient beds and increasing surgical capacity by nearly 30%. The hospital traces its roots back to 1930.
Snapshot:
Facility: Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth
Health System: Texas Health Resources
Project: John and Jane Justin Tower vertical expansion
Funding Support: Naming gift from the Jane & John Justin Foundation
New Space (Floors 11-12): Jane and John Justin Center for Women & Infants; labor and delivery, nursery, dedicated operating rooms, antepartum/postpartum/gynecology rooms
Floors 9-10: Unfinished shell space, reserved for future needs, no rooms added under this project
Additional Scope: Relocation of Obstetric Emergency Department into Justin Tower with dedicated entrance
Maternal Care Designation: Level IV, the highest level available
Vertical Expansion Completion: 2029
Separate Project: Completion of tower floors 4-5, adding 71 patient rooms and a new Surgical Trauma Progressive Care Unit
Floors 4-5 Completion: Expected 2026
NICU Expansion: Separate, later project; 32 new private beds, total capacity growing from 54 to 86
NICU Expansion Completion: Expected 2030, following completion of the Justin Tower expansion
NICU Connectivity: Sky bridge to Cook Children's Medical Center
Justin Tower Original Opening: April 2022, added 144 patient beds, increased surgical capacity by nearly 30%
Hospital Founded: 1930
Related Regional Projects: Plano, southwest Fort Worth, Forney, McKinney, Willow Park, and other North Texas communities
TheJobWalk Thoughts
Three projects are stacked on one campus, each on its own clock. Floors 4-5 open in 2026, the four-floor vertical expansion wraps in 2029, and the NICU follows in 2030. GCs and subs should treat this as three separate bid windows, not one project.
Building around an operating tower adds real coordination demands regardless of unit placement, which tends to favor contractors with hospital renovation experience. Floors 9 and 10 going up as unfinished shell space is a common way systems reserve capacity without committing to a buildout date, and it's worth watching for future bid activity once funding follows.
Texas Health Fort Worth
