Excela Health officials dug into the ground Tuesday off Route 30 in Unity to symbolically begin work on a three-story ambulatory care center they expect will be ready to accept patients by November 2017.
The $40 million center, Excela Square at Latrobe, is envisioned as a one-stop site for health services modeled after the Westmoreland County care provider's Excela Square at Norwin.
Robert Rogalski, Excela Health's chief executive officer, noted the 115,000-square-foot Latrobe facility finally is ready to take shape after five years of planning and preparations.
With roads in place to access the center from Route 30, Arnold Palmer Drive and the Wildcat Commons shopping plaza, ground-moving will begin in earnest next month and steel building components are to arrive in the fall, according to Mike Busch, Excela executive vice president and chief operating officer.
“We expect to be under roof by the time the snow flies” in January, Busch said.
Busch said Excela Square at Latrobe will serve as an extension of Excela Latrobe Hospital while consolidating other services available at 16 separate sites. He said the center will save costs and benefit patients by eliminating extra travel and improving coordination of appointments.
The first floor will feature a wound center, physical therapy and occupational medicine services, as well as laboratory and imaging services — including areas for mammography, ultrasound scans and bone-density testing.
The second floor will include practices for primary care physicians and specialists in orthopedics, cardiology and gastroenterology. The third floor will house obstetrics and family planning practices, along with a central location for the hospital's family residency program, which has graduated nearly 200 family physicians over the past 40 years.
“This new building will allow us to add the space and technology we need to continue to train family medicine residents the right way,” said Dr. Mike Semelka, program director for the residency program. In addition to seeing patients at the new center, he said, they will continue to offer services at several outlying locations, including Mt. Pleasant, Norvelt and Saltsburg.
Busch said Excela Square initially is expected to include a total staff of just more than 200, including 30 physicians and 25 advanced practitioners. He noted that number eventually could grow by 8 to 12 percent, if Excela's experience at Norwin is repeated.
The building will be supplemented by 350 parking spaces.
Jeff Himler is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-836-6622.
