UPMC Mercy Pavilion: 8 eye operating rooms, 83 exam rooms, 10 rehab rooms, massive research space — and 1 cool coffee shop

It’s not unusual for a hospital to have a coffee shop in the lobby. But at the new UPMC Mercy Pavilion, which will house institutes for ophthalmology and rehabilitation, the goal is that it will be more than just staff and patients ordering a latte in between appointments.

The Uptown Café will be open to the public late summer. A pharmacy and optical shop will be open to the public in May. Art installations were created by local artists, some of whom were patients, and other spaces will be open for educational sessions. Wide windows offer natural light and views of Uptown and the South Side.

“Being integrated into the community here was a really intentional thing,” said Dr. Gwendolyn Sowa, director of the UPMC Rehabilitation Institute.

The nine-story pavilion in Pittsburgh’s Uptown neighborhood will bring together the disciplines of ophthalmology and rehabilitation.

UPMC will begin accepting patients in May, with the expectation to be fully moved in this summer.

The project is the result of a 410,000-square-foot, $510 million expansion that was nearly six years in the making.

Located on Locust Street, near Duquesne University, the project was announced in 2017. It broke ground in 2019, which was the first new construction for the Pittsburgh-­based health system in 11 years.

“By making this a welcoming environment — we don’t want people to just come for their clinic visit,” Sowa said. “We want you to grab a cup of coffee and sit down and chat. It’s very valuable for patients, but it’s also very valuable for caregivers to have that connection, that sense of social support.

“We’re considering things like social determinants of health and how we can better both serve the local community and the populations that we serve by attending to those social determinants,” Sowa said.

Dr. José-Alain Sahel, director of the UPMC Vision Institute, said it was important that the building was integrated into the neighborhood, rather than feeling that it was something “that doesn’t belong to them.”

“And then, patients come back all the time for rehabilitation. In many situations, we are treating chronic disease,” Sahel said. “We want them to feel at home when they come here, so it’s not the anxiety you have when you get to the hospital and the question of, ‘What’s going to happen to me?’”

The pavilion will feature eight eye disease operating rooms, 83 eye exam rooms, 10 rehab exam rooms and 100,600 square feet of research space.

It will treat patients with visual, mobility and cognitive impairments. Its specialty areas will include cataract, cornea, glaucoma and neurological care, as well as plastic surgery.

Marrying ophthalmology and rehabilitation is a unique approach in treating a variety of ailments.

Sowa noted there is synergy in treating people with visual impairment, mobility impairment and cognitive impairment and helping them navigate their environment.

Beyond operating and exam rooms and gyms, the facility has several spaces to aid people move around their worlds.

A furnished apartment includes a kitchen outfitted with fully functional appliances, including two types of stoves and fridges, to help folks adapt to their space.

A landscaped garden features different kinds of terrain — pavement, stones, steps — while herbs like spearmint and sage were planted for their scent, taste and texture.

The operating room has an en suite pharmacy, which is standard. However, Julie Hecker, vice president of operations noted that the pharmacy is able to do gene and stem cell therapy compounding on site.