Goodnight Ranch, a 700-acre master-planned community rising along Slaughter Lane, is betting that health care and transit will anchor its next phase of growth — two needs that residents and planners say have long lagged in Southeast Austin. The development is layering a new Austin Regional Clinic, a CapMetro park-and-ride designed for electric buses, and neighborhood-scale retail and childcare onto its schools-and-parks core, according to reporting by Austin Culture Map.
A clinic where none existed
Developers have described the area as a “medical desert,” and the new Austin Regional Clinic (ARC) is intended as a first fix. The city’s largest clinic network has broken ground on a roughly 6,500-square-foot facility with 18 exam rooms and an on-site lab at the southeast corner of Vertex Boulevard and Slaughter Lane, with family medicine and pediatrics slated to begin in early 2024, according to Austin Culture Map. The location is expected to cut travel to a primary care provider from a 4-mile radius “down to zero,” the outlet reported, bringing routine care within the neighborhood for the first time.
The local push arrives as county health leaders expand safety-net capacity. “With Travis County’s rapid growth and rising costs of living, the need for accessible health care has never been greater. That’s why Central Health took bold steps in FY2024 to expand care to thousands more of our most vulnerable neighbors,” said Dr. Pat Lee, President & CEO, Central Health. Central Health’s FY2024 annual report shows the system served 171,374 people across 255 provider locations and grew coverage for uninsured residents through its Medical Access Program — 58,646 people on MAP and 91,831 on MAP Basic — illustrating rising demand and reach countywide, according to Central Health.
County officials have framed the moment as a shift toward faster, broader access. “We are stepping up and providing essential care,” said Brigid Shea, Travis County Commissioner, as quoted by Austin American-Statesman. “We are ready to take it to the next level,” said Dr. Audrey Kuang, Co-Director of High-Risk Populations at Central Health, as reported in Austin American-Statesman.
Transit and access
On mobility, CapMetro is designing a park-and-ride inside Goodnight Ranch that would plug the community into a 14-mile corridor reaching the Mueller area. The site — planned near Goodnight Boulevard and Slaughter — is expected to include charging infrastructure and function as an electric-bus hub, with all-electric service anticipated to begin in 2025, according to Austin Culture Map.
Additional project details and the near-term reality are coming into focus. Plans call for 64 parking spaces, four charging bays for electric buses, shelters, and access for wheelchairs and bikes/scooters, but land acquisition questions have pushed timelines as the design advances, as reported by Austin Monitor. CapMetro leaders have also set expectations that fuller rapid-bus rollouts will ramp up over the next couple of years. “By mid-2026, we expect to be having the Grand Poobah of celebrations on these routes,” said Dottie Watkins, CapMetro CEO, as reported by KUT.
Access, of course, is more than a stop on a map. Central Health’s own research suggests that distance alone doesn’t determine whether people get care. “We have similar rates of people going into clinics and hospitals from our patients who live 10 miles away from a clinic as we do from our patients who live a mile away,” said JP Eichmiller, Central Health’s senior director of strategy and information design, as reported by Austin Monitor. Reliable service, costs, insurance, language, and time off work are among the barriers that transit and neighborhood-based clinics can help lower when paired together.
Retail and services arrive
Goodnight Ranch is also filling in the everyday pieces that make a community stick. The Ramble at Goodnight Ranch is set to bring about 31,000 square feet of retail and office space; local tenants Goodnight Market and Duke’s Liquor have leased space and were expected to open in early 2024, according to Austin Culture Map. A nearly 12,000-square-foot Amazing Explorers Academy is planned to add childcare on-site, with construction timing still to be announced, Austin Culture Map reported.
Why Southeast Austin — and why now
Southeast Austin’s demographics amplify the stakes of these additions. Latino residents make up about 69.1% of the area’s population compared with 34.7% countywide; only about 73% of households have health insurance versus roughly 80% across Travis County; and vehicle access is lower here than in most other focus areas, according to CANATX. Those indicators are why the region has been a focus of health-equity efforts — and why colocating care, childcare, groceries, and frequent transit is more than a convenience play.
If the clinic opens smoothly and CapMetro resolves land terms for its charging-equipped park-and-ride, Goodnight Ranch could become a test case for how suburban-scale projects can plug service gaps in fast-growing corners of Austin. The timeline is staggered — ARC’s initial services were slated for early 2024, all-electric buses are expected to begin in 2025 at the development, and fuller rapid-bus celebrations are envisioned by mid-2026 — but the direction is clear. As county programs expand coverage and providers add capacity, the neighborhood’s built-in services may determine whether those investments translate into shorter wait times, easier trips, and healthier outcomes for families settling in Southeast Austin.
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