Parking changes, room updates ahead at Excela Latrobe Hospital

The Excela Latrobe Hospital campus will have new looks inside and outside in the coming months as the hospital updates patient rooms on the fourth floor and razes its parking garage and former Women's Care Service building to help make way for an expansion of open-air parking lots for visitors and staff.

Excela Health has earmarked more than $2 million for the campus modernization, which is expected to be completed by late summer or early fall.

The fourth floor face lift is set to begin in the next few weeks, following an update of the fifth floor last fall. Fresh paint and floor treatments are planned, along with a renovated nurses station and treatment areas.

The last update of the patient rooms was more than a decade ago, noted Excela spokeswoman Robin Jennings.

“The appearance is important for the patients and staff,” she said of the rooms. “You want to feel you're in a positive, pleasant environment.”

Excela also is planning improvements to its outpatient Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health Services and the addition of other outpatient services not offered at the Latrobe campus, said Maryann Singley, vice president of patient care services at the hospital.

Over the next six months, crews will demolish and replace with at-grade parking lots the building that housed Women's Care Service — on Second Avenue across from the hospital — as well as the five-level parking garage next to the hospital. Women's Care Service recently relocated to the new Excela Square ambulatory care center off Route 30 in Unity.

Excela also intends to expand existing lots along Second Avenue.

The result will be creation of 120 parking spaces, which Jennings said should offset the usable spaces that had been available in the garage. She noted many spaces had been rented to hospital staff and weren't available to visitors.

The bid process is under way for all of the parking improvements. Other new lots should be ready by mid-June, when the garage demolition is set to begin. “It's our intention to keep our neighbors informed” when the demolition is set to move forward, Jennings said.

The garage, which has experienced deterioration in recent years, has been closed for safety since the beginning of March.

Jennings said the new parking lot will be easier and less costly to maintain than the garage it replaces. “All structures that are above-ground and exposed to the elements deteriorate over time,” she said. “You do your best to maintain those structures.”

According to Jennings, the hospital will continue to have adequate off-street parking for its staff.

At a recent Latrobe City Council meeting, a resident of nearby Tacoma Avenue complained that hospital staffers habitually use on-street parking spaces in front of her home, and she asked the city to consider offering parking permits for residents there.

Jennings said hospital staff have been informed of the off-street spaces they are to use. “We want people to use the spots that are designated for them,” she said.

Jeff Himler is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-836-6622, jhimler@tribweb.com or via Twitter @jhimler_news.