Health sciences college takes massive Las Colinas office

University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences plans to increase its footprint even more

A photo illustration of Vivian A. Sanchez of USAHS along with 901 West Walnut Hill Lane in Irving (Getty, LoopNet, USAHS)
A photo illustration of Vivian A. Sanchez of USAHS along with 901 West Walnut Hill Lane in Irving (Getty, LoopNet, USAHS)

A health sciences college is taking a chunk of Las Colinas office space.

The University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences is moving its operations into more than 55,000 square feet at 901 West Walnut Hill Lane in Irving, with plans to expand its footprint in the next few years, the Dallas Morning News reports.

The location is amid the VariSpace office campus, a redevelopment of jeweler Zale Corporation’s former headquarters. The three-building office complex contains more than 400,000 square feet of office space. It served as the base of operations for Zale’s starting with its construction in the 1980s. It was recently remodeled by Coppell-based VariSpace, an office environment firm that also renovated an office complex in Southlake.

“We will provide a strong pipeline of talented workforce for the biggest hospitals and health care facilities in Dallas-Fort Worth for a long time,” said Vivian A. Sanchez, the school’s chancellor and CEO. “The health care professionals who graduate from USAHS’s innovative programs are ready to serve the healthcare industry needs of today and into the future.”

The move by University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences is part of its plans to grow the operation by about 50 percent, the newspaper reported.

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Founded in 1979, the for-profit university — not to be confused with St. Augustine’s University, a historically black college in North Carolina — is owned by the private equity firm Altas Partners and operates campuses in California, Florida and Texas, in Austin and Irving.

The university reported in 2021 that the nation will need 1.2 million new registered nurses by 2030. In 2019, it opened an almost 30,000-square-foot campus in Las Colinas’ Riverside Commons, about a 5-10 minute drive from the new location on West Walnut Hill Lane.

International architecture firm Gensler has been tapped to redesign the space. The university also has plans to add another 21,000 square feet to the campus by August 2024.

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— Maddy Sperling