Construction About To Start On New $35M Medical Center In McCandless Crossing
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MCCANDLESS (KDKA) -- A new medical center is slated to be built in McCandless.
It's going in at McCandless Crossing, right around the corner from UPMC Passavant Hospital. But it won't be another UPMC facility.
The six-acre parcel of land at Duncan Avenue and McKnight Road will soon be the site of a $35 million neighborhood hospital.
One of the main reasons for the project is to fill ongoing gaps in patient care for those in the North Hills who would have to travel into the city to get to Allegheny General Hospital.
"If you're a patient and you need emergency room care, you come. You come to any hospital, you come to any emergency room, we take care of you, and then depending on how sick you are or not sick you are, we'll make sure we'll get you to where you need to be," said Allegheny Health Network Senior Vice President Dave Goldberg.
Construction is expected to be completed by the end of 2019.
The facility will have an emergency room, 10 patient beds and outpatient treatment.
The hospital will compete with UPMC Passavant, which is about a half mile away. But, it also replaces a consent decree between AHN and UPMC.
"As many people in the community know, come June 30, 2019, when the consent decree between Highmark and UPMC expires, we need to make sure that the Highmark members and other members of the community have access to emergency room care and hospital care," said Goldberg.
By a unanimous vote, the McCandless council approved a land development application for the new hospital. The township believes it's a good fit for the community.
"It fits in terms of traffic, impacts on the environment, that all passed muster," said Toby Cordek, the manager of McCandless.
The project is part of AHN's billion dollar plan to build five hospitals, a half dozen cancer centers and an academic cancer institute at AGH, along with upgrades at existing hospitals.
