UPMC Passavant-Cranberry begins $6.6 million renovation
CRANBERRY TWP — UPMC Passavant-Cranberry began a $6.6 million renovation this summer as part of its ongoing “First Impressions” projects.
“Basically about four years ago, we made a request from the Passavant Hospital Foundation for $12 million to do a series of projects called our First Impressions projects,” Keith Lorenz, vice president of operations, said Tuesday, Aug. 15. “And that included projects at both the McCandless and the Cranberry campuses.”
UPMC was expected to match the funding for a little over $24 million in projects.
“It included the main lobby at Cranberry, the nurse’s station at Cranberry, the main lobby at McCandless and our public restrooms at McCandless to make them ADA compliant,” Lorenz said. “It’s a lot of our public-facing areas.”
The first phase completed was the nurses station at UPMC Passavant-Cranberry, he said, just under two-and-a-half years ago.
“Then we shifted our focus down to McCandless,” Lorenz said. “And we’ve been working on our McCandless projects for the last, probably, three years or so.”
Renovations at UPMC Passavant-McCandless were finished July 17, with a ribbon-cutting being held Wednesday, Aug. 16.
“And now that that’s done, we’ve started our Cranberry projects,” Lorenz said.
With expected completion in mid-2025, the Cranberry campus’ renovations will see a significant overhaul of all public areas, according to Lorenz.
“It will renovate the emergency department waiting room, it will renovate the main lobby, and we’re actually adding an expansion to the front of the hospital to give some more space in the waiting area,” he said.
Over the last 10 to 15 years, Lorenz said, most of the campuses’ projects have focused on clinical areas in the hospital, making it the goal of the “First Impressions” projects to update the public areas.
“Our vision was to make the arrival experience consistent with the level of clinical care that we deliver — just really elevating the public-facing areas of our hospital,” he said.
Beginning in early July, crews renovated a vestibule and hallway connected to the main lobby according to Taylor O’Dair, manager of operations.
Crews have since begun work on the first half of the emergency department’s waiting room, he said, with completion expected in October.
“And we’re expanding our outpatient testing area,” Lorenz said. “We’re increasing the capacity by almost 100%.”
He said future renovations would add two phlebotomy areas to the hospital as well as an area for EKGs.
“And then the last thing that we’re going to do, we’re adding what we call ‘Market C,’” Lorenz said. “It is a 24-hour self-service convenience store, and it’s going to be open to the public and to our employees.”
The automated market will monitor purchases through video cameras, allowing customers to purchase snacks and drinks without staff.
“We have this at a lot of other UPMC facilities, and they have been very successful there,” Lorenz said.
The nearly two-year project will be done in phases, according to Lorenz, to ensure continued operation of this “key” area.
“We’re working on our first phase right now, which is half of the emergency department waiting room,” he said. “We actually have a temporary entrance into the emergency department right now, because the vestibule and the waiting area are under construction.”
However, he said that some of the hospitals’ “flow” will be disrupted as the project ramps up. Currently the path from the hospital to the medical office building is closed for the project, with a “temporary detour set up all throughout the facility.”
“So it will be a little bit of a maze here for a little bit,” Lorenz said, “but nothing insurmountable for us.”
He said he hoped the project, and projects like it, would continue to attract county residents to the “world-class care that UPMC delivers.”
“The Cranberry campus is such an important part of UPMC and especially our relationship with the Cranberry community,” Lorenz said. “And being able to continue to invest in that facility is something that’s important for us, and it’s certainly one of UPMC’s key neighborhoods to continue to support.”
