Campus
Trinity overlooks downtown San Antonio and is adjacent to the Monte Vista Historic District and just south of the cities of Olmos Park and Alamo Heights. The 125-acre (50.6 ha) Skyline Campus, the university's fourth location, is noted for its distinctive red-brick architecture and well-maintained grounds, modeled after an Italian village, by late architect O'Neil Ford.
The 166-foot (51 m) tall Murchison Tower is the most dominant landmark on the campus, designed, as many other buildings on campus, by O'Neil Ford, who also designed San Antonio landmark the Tower of the Americas a few years later based on this design. It was previously the highest point in San Antonio. The tower is now lit at night (excepting evenings when the lighting interferes with on-campus astronomical observations), a tradition begun on September 22, 2002, to commemorate Trinity's 60th anniversary in San Antonio.
Laurie Auditorium seats 2,865 and hosts both campus and community events. The university has many lecture series, such as the Trinity Distinguished Lecture Series, Stieren Arts Enrichment Series, Nobel Economists Lecture Series, and Flora Cameron Lecture on Politics and Public Affairs.
The 164,000-square-foot (15,200 m2) Elizabeth Huth Coates Library holds 696,563 bound volumes and provides access to 435,973 e-books and 249 research databases. Its annual acquisition budget was $1,743,140 as of the 2023–24 fiscal year.
In 2006, the Ruth Taylor Fine Arts Center, consisting of the Jim and Janet Dicke Art Building, the Campbell and Eloise Smith Music Building, and the Ruth Taylor Recital Hall was substantially renovated, providing 20,000 additional square feet of space. The building subsequently won a merit award for design from the City of San Antonio in 2008.
The Center for Sciences and Innovation (CSI), completed in 2014, modernized the university's science, engineering, and laboratory facilities and helped ease collaboration across disciplines. The center sits on the former site of the William L. Moody Jr. Engineering Building. Renovations to connect existing buildings allow for a 300,000 square-foot science facility. The complex, certified LEED Gold, features a rooftop observatory, a living "green" roof and rooftop greenhouse, and an open-air innovation and design studio.
The Margarite B. Parker Chapel seats six hundred and is known for its large Hofmann-Ballard pipe organ, the largest pipe organ in South Texas, comprising 5 divisions, 102 stops, 112 ranks, and over 6,000 pipes. A state-of-the-art four-manual console was installed in summer 2007, with the aid of the university's Calvert Trust Fund. Non-denominational services are led by the campus chaplain on Sunday evenings.
In fall 2022, Trinity opened its as of Spring 2026 latest building, Dicke Hall, which houses the Humanities Collective, the English Department, and the Religion Department. The building is 3 stories with 40,000 square feet, 6 classrooms, and 1 lecture hall. It was designed by the San Antonio architectural firm Lake Flato Architects using a mass-timber structural system also known as engineered wood.
The university's "New Front Door," consisting of a welcome center and event hall, is scheduled to open in the fall of 2026. The welcome center will be a first stop for prospective students and their families, housing the offices of admissions and alumni relations, and will be located next to Dicke Hall near the existing campus entry on Hildebrand Avenue. The co-located, 7,028 event hall will offer an additional community-friendly space for lectures, seminars, and other school events.
Miller Residence Hall, home to first-year students at Trinity University, was renovated and updated in 2010, earning gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification by the U.S. Green Building Council in the process. In addition, Calvert Hall, the Thomas-Lightner complex, and the Center for Sciences and Innovation have been registered with the Green Building Council's LEED program and are awaiting certification. Trinity is a member of the Presidents' Climate Commitment and is actively working toward carbon neutrality.
