Plans for a major expansion of Mount Nittany Medical Center are moving forward following approval by College Township Council on Thursday night.
Council unanimously approved a final land development plan for the addition of a 10-story patient tower, parking deck and two-story central energy plant at the hospital. Mount Nittany Health first announced the $350 million project in September 2021 and its board of directors advanced plans last fall.
“We really believe that this investment back in the community is closely aligned with our mission of ‘healthier people, stronger communities,’” Brian Roach, Mount Nittany Health chief financial officer, told council. “The improvement of patient experience and staff experience from the execution of this project will increase dramatically.”
Construction is slated to begin this summer and completion is expected in 2026.
The 300,000-square-foot tower will include 168 private patient rooms and will enable existing semi-private rooms to be converted to single-occupancy, so all of the hospital’s inpatients will have their own room. When completed, Mount Nittany’s bed count will grow by five to 248 and its license for 260 beds will not change.
Roach said during a sketch plan overview in January that the plans will streamline and improve patient care and processes.
Other plans for the tower include telemetry capabilities, outpatient clinics, point-of-care registration, a modernized data center, staff amenities, improved storage, outdoor spaces and enhanced dining.
A dining terrace will be connected to a new cafeteria and the area around the addition will have “a lot of opportunity there for natural landscaping,” Jim Routh, principal of project architect Stantec, said. Expected features include respite gardens and walking paths.
The design of the tower will have brick elements to tie into the existing hospital, with accents of natural stone and “wood-like material,” Routh said. Large windows for the patient rooms will allow for natural daylight and views of the landscape.
A 177-space parking deck is included in the plans to provide parking for visitors in closer proximity to the tower. Nicholas Schaefer, of parking and traffic consultant Trans Associates, said the hospital has and will continue to have more parking supply than a study determined to be needed.
“The problem is not a lack of supply,” Schaefer said. “It’s simply an improvement in accessibility for parking.”
A covered walkway will connect the parking deck and patient tower.
While some functions will move to the new tower, Roach said “a considerable amount of space that is not moving over to the tower.” Plans for the existing areas that will be vacated have not been finalized.
Clinical staff is not expected to increase as a result of the new building, Roach said in January. But hospital officials have said, and Councilman Eric Bernier noted again on Thursday, that a modern new facility will help with recruiting and retaining high-quality staff.
“As this thing moves forward, somebody ought to be talking a little bit more about how this is an improvement whether its intended or not with the hope of building a facility that will attract and retain high-end talent that will make this area a place that people will go to instead of driving to Hershey or Danville or wherever,” Bernier said. “I think that’s understood by us but maybe not generally with the public.”
Bob Donahue, Mount Nittany Health chief facilities officer, said the project already has been exciting for current staff, who have been integral to the design process.
“The reason they’re so excited is because we’ve involved them all along the way,” Donahue said. “We’ve got staff nurses leading project teams. We did room mock outs within the facility where we actually built out a patient room and brought in physicians, PAs and nursing and techs and housekeepers through those areas. We had over 300 people walk through and put sticky notes up and provide us with their feedback.That in itself makes this project feel like it’s there’s, and at the end of the day it kind of really is. The outcome of it is healthy patients, but having great staff that we can recruit and retain is ultimately going to be the foundation of our success. They’ve been instrumental so far in the design of our new patient tower.”
The patient tower addition is Mount Nittany Health’s second recent major construction project as part of an ongoing plans for expansion and renovations at the medical center and outpatient locations.
A new four-story outpatient medical center is under construction and is expected to open in 2024 at Toftrees West in Patton Township.
Other recent initiatives include major expansions and renovations of Joseph V. and Suzanne P. Paterno Women and Children’s Services Unit women and children’s unit and the clinical laboratory, as well as renovations imaging department at the medical center to create a newly designed diagnostic pavilion on the main floor of the hospital and the addition of a new inpatient dialysis unit.
