UR making progress on orthopedics campus at Marketplace Mall

Rochester, New York — The more-than $200 million ambulatory orthopedics center is moving into the Marketplace Mall and is on track to expand patient care by the end of this year.

A little more than one year from now, UR’s facility will replace the former Sears storefront and will bring extensive orthopedics and physical therapy care to the region.

Nearly 700 employees will offer medical care by fall 2023, and nearly 200 new jobs will be introduced.

“This facility is, if you will, a one-stop location for everything muscular and skeletal. We’ll be able to provide office visits for patients, advanced imaging including cat scans and MRI; physical therapy to help those recover from an injury,” said Dr. Paul Rubery, chair of UR Orthopedics. “There will be a dedicated space for sports performance and injury prevention, an ambulatory surgery space, and then also the ability for people to have surgeries that require an overnight stay, which is a real innovation.”

Dr. Rubery said the facility is sure to draw patients, from Western New York and beyond, for a variety of treatments.

“As we designed this space, we prepared some spaces for expansion which will make it easier, safer, less costly, and faster to expand in the future when the community needs it,” said Dr. Rubery.

Part of the campus expansion includes work from Synergy Med Solutions out of Colorado.

The company is introducing the Clean Cube Medical System to UR’s facility by installing an already-built operating room.

According to leaders, it’s the first of its kind worldwide on an academic level. The room will join other standard operating rooms and will include unique infection control systems. “In the amount of one to two months, we can have six operating rooms up and running, versus three to six months worth of construction otherwise,” said Ford Kellogg, CEO of Synergy Med Solutions.

“It takes these spaces, which really were empty and had people wondering, ‘What are they going to do?’ It makes them vibrant and busy again,” said Dr. Rubery.

Once it opens to the public, UR Medicine is partnering with RTS to form a bus line that will drop patients off at the clinic.

By the end of this year, the surgery center is expected to open, and the clinic tower is expected to open in the fall of 2023.