Kamin Tower at UPMC Presbyterian will be complete in less than a year. The Pittsburgh Business Times looks at the impact of the project on patients, staff, and the community in Pittsburgh and beyond.
The Daniel G and Carole L Kamin Tower at UPMC Presbyterian has been under construction for more than three years, with completion anticipated in 2026, and an opening date in 2027 to be announced very soon. The Pittsburgh Business Times recently devoted its cover story to the project, the tower, and all the ways the facility will help the people who make up UPMC Presbyterian change how medicine is delivered in Pittsburgh and beyond.
Here are some quick facts to know about the construction, the building, and the transformation:
– The Pittsburgh Business Times article, which you can read here, focuses on the tower’s design and its impacts on the employee and patient experience, and the technology that will help the new facility set the tone for health care into the next century.
– The groundbreaking for the tower took place in summer 2022, the final beam was placed in fall 2024, and the tower is on track for completion of construction on time next fall.
– Next week, the opening date for the tower will be announced — UPMC Presbyterian staff will be the first to hear the news. On this opening date, there will be a highly coordinated one-day move of hundreds of patients from the current UPMC Presbyterian and UPMC Montefiore to the new tower.
– The tower will include 636 private patient rooms, new specialty operating rooms, including an Interventional MRI Suite (iMRIS) with a magnet that can be moved into one of two ORs during an interventional procedure.
– The building was designed with staff input, and with staff in mind: Employees have been involved in feedback sessions since the earliest points of the design process, and employee experience is integrated into the building in foundational ways, like staff break rooms located at corners of the tower to incorporate maximum natural light.
– Kamin Tower will include community connections like a full-service restaurant operated by a Pittsburgh restaurateur, areas for local artists and other vendors to sell their wares, and farmers markets.
– The tower will become the primary inpatient building on the UPMC Presbyterian campus. Some inpatient beds will remain in the existing UPMC Presbyterian, and many other services will continue in the other buildings across the campus, which occupies most of three city blocks in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, adjacent to the University of Pittsburgh.
– All told, the art incorporated into the building, from local and national artists, will represent the largest new public art installation in the Oakland neighborhood in decades.
