by Bryant Boutwell, Dr.P.H

On Oct.28, 1972, the AstroWorld Hotel next to Houston’s shiny new Astrodome was abuzz. George Bush, then ambassador to the United Nations, was in town to dedicate the John H. Freeman Building and launch the UT Medical School at Houston with its first permanent facility. Two years early the School’s new dean, Dr. Cheves Smythe, had arrived and leased space in the Jesse Jones Library Building while he recruited faculty and the first class of 19 students who would be enrolled at UT campuses in three cities. Each student held the promise of returning to Houston in their third year when the School would have a building of its own. Dr. Smythe was true to his word. It only took one year, from August 1971 to August 1972, to construct the John H. Freeman Building. With 55,000 square feet of classrooms, research labs, and office space that provided students their own study cubicles, the new two-story building was considered spacious by all standards.

Construction of the John Freeman Building began in 1971

Fast forward 32 years and the John Freeman Building is once again the center of attention as plans are being made to remove the aging and outdated facility to build a new six-story research building that will carry the Medical School into the future.

Quite simply, the growth of the Medical School and the success of the research enterprise have far outpaced the Freeman Building’s capacity to meet the School’s needs. The research building will provide 208,500 gross square feet in which to house a modern animal care center and research space dedicated to the areas of neurobiology of human development, structural biology, functional (physiological) genomics, and molecular biology of human pathogens.

An example of the types of labs that will be found in the new Research Replacement Facility, which will be built on the current John Freeman Building site.

This addition to the Texas Medical Center’s skyline says that the UT Medical School at Houston is thriving. Coupled with the new Brown Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases now under construction adjacent to the University Center Tower, these two research buildings deliver a powerful and contrasting statement for the future of research and the growth of the Medical School as it was then…and as it is now.