Mount Nittany Health’s new $90M outpatient center is complete. Take a look around

After about two years of construction, Mount Nittany Health is nearly ready to open its new 125,000-square-foot Mount Nittany Toftrees outpatient center to patients.

With the official opening planned for Sept. 3, members of the media, Mount Nittany staff members and local leaders were invited Tuesday to the new building’s ribbon cutting, along with a tour of the facility.

The ribbon cutting and tour kicked off with speeches from Mount Nittany CEO Kathleen Rhine, Chief Operations Officer Dawn Tice and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Christopher Hester, who all expressed excitement about the health system’s expansion.

“We want to be your health care provider of choice, and we want you to see our new facility and to be as excited about it as we are,” Hester said. “We’ve all been waiting for this big moment.”

The new building, located at 164 Greenview Drive, will house nine of Mount Nittany’s existing practices and add a new pediatrics office and outpatient endoscopy suite.

In total, the new facility cost about $90 million, and about 260 staff members will work there.

The new building is comprised of four floors, with up to four departments on each floor.

Below is a closer look at what’s on each floor.

First floor

The first floor of the new Mount Nittany Toftrees building has two different sections: pediatrics and obstetrics/gynecology.

The pediatrics wing has 13 rooms, including a lactation room for mothers. Each exam room is decorated in the theme of a different children’s book.

This new pediatric office will be Mount Nittany’s third in Centre County — the other two at 129 Medical Park Lane, Bellefonte , and 3901 S. Atherton St., Boalsburg , will continue to see patients.

The OB-GYN side of the floor is not yet ready to be moved into yet, but will be soon after the Sept. 3 move-in date.

Employees that worked at Mount Nittany Health’s previous OB-GYN location, at 1850 Park Ave., will be moving to this new location.

Second floor

Mount Nittany Toftrees’ second floor holds three different practices — fitness and rehabilitation, neurology and orthopedics and sports medicine.

The fitness and rehabilitation section of the floor offers state-of-the-art exercise and rehabilitation machines for all patients, along with a new anti-gravity treadmill.

The treadmill will be used to help patients suffering from lower body injuries and overuse by taking away gravity’s pull on their body, making for less impact on the body’s joints and muscles. It’s the first of its kind at Mount Nittany.

The former fitness and rehabilitation location was known as Mount Nittany Fit for Play and was located at 2160 Sandy Drive in State College. Employees will be relocating to the Toftrees location from there.

The new neurology department is one that neurology specialist Dr. Eric Emanski is particularly excited about, having just moved to Mount Nittany Health weeks ago.

“Having the opportunity to be here to practice neurology and do spinal work is so wonderful,” Emanski said. “The new facility is so gorgeous and my favorite part out of it all is our new X-ray machine — it can take images of the full spine, which is something we couldn’t do here before.”

Mount Nittany employees will be relocating to the new facility from the previous neurology location at 2121 Old Gatesburg Road in State College.

The final practice to be found on the second floor is the orthopedics wing. This wing will offer similar services to what Mount Nittany previously offered, but with increased capacity for patients.

Mount Nittany employees will be relocating to the new facility from the previous orthopedics location at 1700 Old Gatesburg Road in Suite 200, along Blue Course Drive.

Third floor

The ear, nose and throat, surgical associates and urology departments can all be found on the facility’s third floor.

The new ENT department, which is relocating from its current location at 3901 S. Atherton St., Boalsburg, features the same services as the prior location, but with some enhancements.

Three new audiology testing booths have been installed on the floor, meaning that patients can be seen and tested quicker, according to audiologist Sydney Hancock.

“These state-of-the-art testing booths are great for serving patients quickly,” Hancock said. “We went from having two total booths that were somewhat far apart, to having three here in one location, so we can really consolidate our resources and inter-professionally practice now that everyone is here.”

The surgical associates department, formerly known to patients and Mount Nittany employees as the “general surgery” practice, features similar services to what was available at previous Mount Nittany locations, with increased patient capacity.

Employees in this department will be moving to the Toftrees facility from their former location, 1850 Park Ave., but surgeries will still be performed at the Mount Nittany Medical Center.

Urology, the third and final department located on the third floor, now has more exam rooms for patients, which urology specialist Dr. Christopher Yingling said was needed.

“Urology has kind of become a big part of Mount Nittany and we’ve become somewhat of a regional practice, so it’s really nice for us to get to grow into a facility that matches that,” Yingling said. “We think (the new facility) will allow us to hopefully provide better and more timely care, because now we have enough time and space to allow visits to happen on a more timely basis. This really has modernized urology for us.”

In addition to treating patients in a more timely manner, the additional space will also allow the staff in the urology department to take full advantage of the “good tech,” that they have, said Yingling.

Fourth floor

While the fourth floor was not shown to the media on Tuesday’s tour, it holds the building’s administration, as well as three practices — gastroenterology, endoscopy and primary care.

Gastroenterology and primary care employees will be moving to Mount Nittany Toftrees from their prior locations at 3901 S. Atherton St. and 2520 Green Tech Drive, respectively, while a new endoscopy center is created.

More complex endoscopy cases will be still seen at Mount Nittany Medical Center though.

What’s next?

As of Sept. 3, all Mount Nittany patients for the moving practices should report to the Mount Nittany Toftrees location. Patients unsure of where their next appointment will be can check on mymountnittanthealth.com .

In addition to the opening of this new outpatient medical center, Mount Nittany Health has been busy in other areas of Centre County, too.

In May, Mount Nittany opened its first ExpressCare facility , specializing in rapid treatment for patients suffering from minor ailments and injuries. The health system is also constructing a 10-floor, $350 million patient tower at the medical center that will hold 168 private rooms, outpatient clinics and advanced technology for patients and staff.

Other expansions of health care in Centre County include Penn Highlands Healthcare’s new $90 million hospital and medical office building at 239 Colonnade Boulevard in Patton Township and Geisinger’s $12 million expansion of its clinic at Gray’s Woods in Patton Township. Geisinger also plans a new $15.5 million health care facility that will offer primary and urgent care in Spring Township.