The new $70 million, 185,000 square foot UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex in Cranberry Township, Pa., will put sports medicine and a Pittsburgh Penguins practice facility under one roof.
$70 million complex will include MOB and ice rinks for the Pittsburgh Penguins
By Murray W. Wolf
The Pittsburgh Penguins might have been eliminated from the 2014 National Hockey League (NHL) Stanley Cup playoffs, but the team still has something to look forward to. By mid-2015, the Penguins are scheduled to be able to move into the new $70 million, 185,000 square foot UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex near Pittsburgh.
Construction began last fall for the combined sports medicine and practice facility, which is slated to include a two-story, almost 50,000 square foot medical office building (MOB) for the non-profit University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) and two ice rinks for the Penguins.
The complex will be owned by UMPC and the Penguins. Occupying a site at 8000 Cranberry Springs Drive, the complex is near the intersection of U.S. Interstate 79 and Pennsylvania Route 228 in Cranberry Township, in Butler County, Pa., about 20 miles north of Pittsburgh.
According to a warranty deed dated March 10 and filed with the Butler County Recorder, UMPC Presbyterian Shadyside paid Sippel Enterprises LP about $10.37 million for the 11.11-acre parcel upon which the sports complex is being built.
According to ICON Venue Group, the Penguins’ client representative for the development, the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex will be a “first-of-its-kind” sports performance center and NHL practice rink. In addition to housing what will become the new primary training center for the hockey team, the facility will be home to an “NHL-quality” locker room, a weight room and two hockey rinks with 1000 seats and 500 seats, respectively. When the rinks are not being used by the Penguins they will be open to the public for skating and other events.
The medical office portion of the complex will include clinical space “for world-class orthopedic and therapy programs for injury treatment and prevention,” according to ICON. The facility will house 24 exam rooms, including a concussion clinic and spaces for imaging, physical therapy and sports performance training.
Ground was broken for the project in October in a ceremony attended by Penguins’ owner Mario Lemieux, team president David Morehouse, UPMC CEO Jeffrey Romoff and other dignitaries. Site work has been underway since fall, but the closing of the land sale cleared the way for facility construction to begin. The complex is scheduled to be completed by July 2015. The architect is BBH Design of Raleigh, N.C., and the general contractor is P.J. Dick of Pittsburgh.
Mr. Lemieux is an NHL Hall of Famer and cancer survivor who played parts of 17 seasons with the Penguins before buying the team in 1999. He and his family foundation have contributed to a number of UPMC projects at other locations.
The UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex is part of Sippel Development’s proposed 90-acre, 1.7 million square foot, five-phase Cranberry Springs development, which is also slated to include a 100-room hotel, five restaurants, and possibly retail and office space.
UPMC operates 22 academic, community and specialty hospitals and 400 outpatient sites; employs about 3,500 physicians; and offers an array of rehabilitation, retirement and long-term care facilities. Not far from the site of the future sports complex in Cranberry Township, the system operates the 35-bed UPMC Passavant – Cranberry satellite hospital, along with two MOBs and a senior living facility.
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