Monday, July 13, 2009

TCMC


After a week of complaining about the debacle that is Lackawanna County Stadium, a positive turn. It's only a few miles away from the ballpark.

The new Commonwealth Medical College is going up on Pine Street, near Mercy Hospital. The buildings on this site won't be ready until 2011. The college will use near-by Lackawanna College until then. The first students arrive in about one month.

The photo below shows it's out of the ground. I took this picture from the Mercy Hospital parking garage. You can find a 24 hour "construction cam" at the school's web site. To give the photo a little perspective, Scranton City Hall and Lackawanna College are in the upper left.

Could they have chosen a better site? Probably. Blue Cross dumped a lot of money into this. Could Blue Cross have used that money to lower your premiums? Likely.

Still, it's close enough to downtown. A few hospitals, Lackawanna College, and the University of Scranton are within walking distance. If TCMC delivers everything it's promised, it should be a huge plus for the area.

We can't forget about satellite TCMC operations in Wilkes-Barre and Williamsport.

Getting off the serious stuff for a second, I'm not one for getting my hands dirty. I'm not good at building things, but there's something about watching a construction site that's a ton of fun.

I wish I could give you a great location to watch the TCMC project, but there really isn't one. The Mercy parking garage is about the best, but watch the traffic, and I'm not sure the hospital will be thrilled with tourists walking the ramps.