To look at it, you’d never guess the Saunders Center for Orthopaedics and Physical Performance in Henrietta, New York, was previously a place that sold appliances.
Perkins&Will and SLAM transformed a former Sears at the Marketplace Mall into a state-of-the-art medical facility with a 227,000-square-foot renovation and a 145,400-square-foot addition. Repurposing an empty department store not only addresses the challenges posed by vacant retail spaces but also meets the rising demand for accessible healthcare facilities.
Comprehensive Healthcare Under One Roof
The Saunders Center, part of the University of Rochester Medical Center, consolidates a wide array of orthopaedic services, making it one of the largest outpatient facilities in the Northeast. The center boasts eight surgical suites, 144 exam rooms, advanced diagnostic imaging capabilities, movement-based physical therapy, athletic training, computerized motion analysis, customized prosthetics, and injury risk assessment programs.
The design includes multiple entry points, ample parking, and a dedicated bus stop along existing mall routes, ensuring ease of access for all patients. Interior spaces are thoughtfully designed to be intuitive and accommodating, particularly for those with mobility challenges.
In many ways, malls make ideal medical centers. As a wholly suburban creation, malls brought convenient shopping outside of downtown. Now that many of these buildings sit vacant thanks to e-commerce, the medical industry can extend services into more residential communities. That would effectively “upend perceptions of healthcare as a centralized urban complex,” says Robert Goodwin, design principal at Perkins&Will and the design architect for the project. This strategy not only makes healthcare services more accessible but also revitalizes underutilized spaces.
“We are integrating healthcare into the existing fabric of the community rather than asking patients to travel to a facility that might be hard to reach or seem intimidating in scale or layout,” Goodwin says.
Malls also have the benefit of high ceilings and skylights. The Saunders Center leverages the existing mall structure to enhance daylight exposure in key areas such as pre- and post-operative spaces, therapy rooms, rehabilitation gyms, and pools. Designed with patient recovery in mind, a significant portion of the renovated space is dedicated to physical therapy, rehabilitation, and sports performance facilities. Among these is the CHAMPP Gym (Center for Human Athleticism and Musculoskeletal Performance and Prevention), which focuses on injury prevention, athletic training, nutrition, and academic support for student-athletes.
Repurposing a department store also reduced construction time and costs compared to building a new facility from the ground up. Construction began in 2021 and was facility was operational in 2023—a relatively quick turnaround.
“With existing infrastructure, we could concentrate on realizing the university’s vision for a facility that integrates orthopaedics, radiology, surgery, and treatment under one roof, meeting the region’s growing demand for accessible care,” says Scott Hansche, AIA, principal-in-charge at SLAM.
Expect more ‘medtail’
The Saunders Center isn’t the only medical facility to utilize a retail space. Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville repurposed 450,000 square feet of empty mall space, formerly housing stores like Reebok and JCPenney, into specialized clinics, including women's health and dermatology. Likewise, the former Landmark Mall in Alexandria, Va., is being redeveloped into a $2 billion hospital complex by Inova Health System.
Expect the trend to gain momentum as more malls go dark and demand for convenient health care grows.
