Work on planned neonatal intensive care unit is underway at Geisinger Community Medical Center in Scranton, a potentially invaluable resource for newborns that’s expected to open later this year.
The prospective Level II NICU, “a specialty care nursery capable of caring for babies as young as 32 weeks gestation and as small as about 3.3 pounds,” will be located on the third floor of the Hill Section hospital, Geisinger officials announced Monday in a news release. Babies born in that range of prematurity often require help eating or breathing “until they get strong enough to thrive without assistance.”
Completion of the project, targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026, will add a resource for expectant mothers and families and bolster the region’s broader healthcare landscape. A prior NICU at what was then Community Medical Center closed in 2010, before Geisinger acquired the hospital.
Renovation work is underway at Geisinger Community Medical Center in Scranton to add a Level II Neonatal Intensive Care Unit to the hospital’s third floor. (PHOTO COURTESY OF GEISINGER)
Currently the only NICU in Scranton, a Level III, is located at Regional Hospital of Scranton’s Moses Taylor Hospital campus. The NICU at GCMC will “integrate seamlessly” with the Level III NICU at Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center in Plains Twp. and the Level IV NICU at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Geisinger officials said.
“Our Level II NICU at Geisinger Community Medical Center will allow us to care for more babies and their families right here in the greater Scranton area and northeastern Pennsylvania community by enhancing our capability to care for premature and sick newborns,” Dr. Ben Lee, director of the Division of Neonatology in Geisinger’s northeast region, said in the release. “Whether your baby is born in good health or in need of intensive care, our network of NICUs in NEPA and in the Geisinger system will be with you to provide the care your baby needs.”
Work to add the NICU, a $7.7 million investment in care for mothers and babies, began in late May. The 7,100-square-foot unit will house seven neonatal specialty care beds adjacent to the hospital’s childbirth center and postpartum unit.
“Providing a higher acuity of care for newborns at Geisinger Community Medical Center grows and strengthens the services we offer and continue to expand in Scranton,” Nick Coleman, associate vice president of clinical operations in Geisinger’s northeast region, said in the release. “Over the last two years alone, we’ve added capability in inpatient care, postpartum care and diagnostic imaging, and renovations to add more postpartum beds and emergency medicine capacity are progressing.”
Expansion pending
Renovations for the new NICU are taking place within the hospital’s existing footprint as Geisinger’s plans for a major expansion of GCMC remain pending. While Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti proposed and the prior Scranton City Council narrowly approved late last year rezoning to accommodate that expansion, a neighbor of the hospital, Tom Hoppel of 215 Arthur Ave., subsequently sued the city seeking to reverse the rezoning.
The prospect of the expansion has for years been a source of concern and controversy among a passionate group of Hill Section neighbors wary of the proposed development’s impact on their neighborhood and quality of life.
An aerial view of Geisinger Community Medical Center in Scranton Friday, April 24, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
They had prevailed in an earlier zoning battle, with council voting in April 2023 to amend Scranton’s then-proposed new zoning ordinance and map to limit the height of new buildings on GCMC’s Colfax Avenue properties near the hospital to 45 feet.
But the rezoning plan council approved by a 3-2 vote in December, with members Mark McAndrew and Tom Schuster opposed, changed Geisinger-owned property on the odd side of Colfax’s 200 block and the even side of its 400 block from institutional to civic zones with a 100-foot height limit, effectively accommodating the expansion the earlier zoning had stymied.
At an early December council meeting, before the rezoning proposal passed, Geisinger officials noted plans to construct a five-story, 75-foot-tall clinical building and parking garage in the 400 block of Colfax. A bridge over Mulberry Street would connect the “inpatient addition” on the site of the former John J. Audubon School to the existing hospital. A five-story garage with 400 parking spaces would be built next to the addition, closer to Vine Street, they said.
Hoping to reverse the rezoning, Hoppel filed his zoning appeal lawsuit against the city in January. The hospital then intervened in February and became a party in the case that remains ongoing.
In a February statement, Geisinger said expanding the GCMC is “critical to give our community more access to acute hospital services – in a setting where patients can heal and recover in the best possible environment – as soon as we can.”