The George W. Bush Presidential Center, which opened on April 25, 2013, is a complex that includes former United States President George W. Bush's presidential library and museum, the George W. Bush Policy Institute, and the offices of the George W. Bush Foundation. It is located on the campus of Southern Methodist University (SMU) in University Park, Texas, near Dallas. It was selected to be the eventual burial location of George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States (2001–2009), and his wife Laura Bush. ^{[citation needed]}

Before Bush became president, officials at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, started to work on a bid for the library. They believed that their proximity to his ranch in Crawford and their location within 100 miles (160 km) of Austin, Dallas and the Bryan-College Station metropolitan area gave them a good shot at winning such a project. Not long after Bush became president, officials at Southern Methodist University (SMU) began working on their bid for the library.

The White House refused to discuss the issue until after Bush had won a second term. In the latter part of 2005, the White House asked a total of six colleges and one city to submit bids for the library. The six were Baylor, SMU, the University of Texas System, Texas Tech University, the University of Dallas, and Midland College. The city of Arlington, Texas, also submitted a bid. A few weeks later, Midland College announced it was merging its bid with Texas Tech to form a "West Texas Coalition" to win the library and museum. Part of the proposal was to create a Laura Bush reading center at Midland College while the main presidential library and museum would be housed on the Lubbock campus of Texas Tech.

Each of the groups had benefits and drawbacks to their bids. Arlington had land to offer near the stadiums for the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers. It was in the middle of an area that already draws a large number of tourists every year. The lack of school involvement was a large drawback to the proposal, even though the University of Texas at Arlington assisted the city in making the bid.

Baylor University had substantial land to offer on the banks of the Brazos River in Waco. The downside was that Baylor is not in a major metropolitan area and would probably not attract nearly as many visitors annually as the library would if it were built somewhere in the Dallas area.

Many on the campus of the UT System opposed the school's bid for the library; for example, The Daily Texan, the student newspaper of the UT system's university, the University of Texas at Austin, printed an editorial against the project. On the plus side, UT Austin was already home to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum and had experience in managing such a project. The drawback was the proposal to split the library up over several UT campuses around the state. This decentralized approach was sold as a way to create a "virtual" library that would benefit far more people.

The UT system also submitted with its bid a downtown property under its ownership as well as offering the UT Dallas campus. The Downtown Dallas property was located close to the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, which attracts a large number of tourists already and was located far away from residential areas, which would prevent complaints about congestion. It would also help rejuvenate the central downtown area, which had been facing a flight of businesses and development towards the uptown areas. However, the idea of the UT system running the museum itself was found unfavorable. UT Dallas in Richardson, traditionally considered an engineering school and the one of the youngest universities in the UT System, was in the middle of large developments to its campus. It had a growing governmental studies and business program whose faculty was supportive of the bid. It was also located north of Dallas near the fast developing communities of Frisco and Plano. However, the UT Dallas administration was uninterested in being in the business of running a museum. Additionally conflicts as to where the museum would be located (the UT System wanted to use land that the UT Dallas administration had set aside for the future construction of residential halls and a research building) led to the UT System withdrawing its proposal.

Texas Tech also had a substantial amount of land to offer and a supportive faculty and student body. The drawback to Texas Tech's bid was that the school is located in Lubbock, again outside a major metro area.