Construction Watch: Mercy Hospital

I'm all for redevelopment, but I'm not impressed with the design.

From the video it looks like Cannon's Corporate Design Group has merged with the Healthcare Group. That's a shame. Should a hospital really look like a corporate headquarters?

Where is the sense that this is a soothing, healing place? I don't see it. The new design looks cold and impersonal. Not what you want in a hospital.

Agreed. I really hate the impermeable reflective glass and stone wall built nearly to the sidewalk along Abbott. Extremely uninviting and a continued degrading of the public presence of the original building. Cannon continues to suck as a campus and institutional planner.

Once again, a medical facility gets a free pass from quality development.

I believe both of you are very short sited. The idea of comfort is in the eye of the beholder, not to mention, the video is really an early rendition of the project and doesn't necessarily reflect everything there is to offer. I certainly wouldn't call the current situation at Buffalo Mercy, or even ECMC's ED comfortable in the least. This certainly improves things a hundred times over. As for the impermeable reflective glass, well, that's for privacy reasons since there are patient rooms along that wall. The hospital doesn't need people on the outside being able to see who is in the emergency room. Anyway, what would you rather have, impermeable brick? Allowing patients and waiting family members to see the openness from within is much more inviting and comforting than cold brick walls.

The idea and development plan for the emergency room is based on the need to create a more efficient work flow for the staff and physicians, providing patients with the best emergent care possible. The planning and development is state of the art, it's really about what the hospital can provide the community in the way of patient care, and not so much as to how pretty it is for passerby's. Space is of the utmost importance, there was no other place to build this state of the art emergency department, and I think Buffalo Mercy has done a tremendous job of mixing the old in with the new. It almost represents the continuum of care that has transpired over the last 100 years with state of the art medical technology in use today.

I believe this is a tremendous contribution to the south towns community.

In reference to "townline"'s comment regarding the continued degrading of the public presence of the original building. Do you not remember the massive parking lot and 20' light poles that lined Abbot Road? The original building was so far removed from the "public realm" it hardly existed there. The renderings and the video were very early in the process and do not accurately depict the final design of the building or the site. The stone wall along Abbott allows for the nearly 10' of elevation change from the sidewalk to the front door to be manageable and handicap accessible without an institutional style ramp. The entry area, once complete, will have multiple levels of plantings, seating areas for patients and families and a manageable drop off. The street scape will once again be green with street trees and benches all along Abbott Road rather than the bumpers of cars and cobra style parking lot lighting.

Does not look too bad. The convenience of catching your plane right at the hospital cannot be ignored either.

Why was a helipad necessary? What is the distance and time to the other two helipads in Buffalo? I am not a medical administrator but would like to know if this could be some of the duplication of services that increases the costs to all subscribers in their premium?

It looks like something out of East Germany.

how come that strange glass ski jump looks nothing the rendering below?

The helipad is there for emergency cases, not so much trauma, but situations that might be cardiac related, or stroke related, time is critical in those situations, especially when patients are coming in from a half hour or hour south of the city.