Geisinger building $32 million, 40,000-square-foot cancer center in Lewisburg

At 4531 West Branch Highway just south of Lewisburg, crews are installing a linear accelerator vault and infusion stations as Geisinger moves forward with a $32 million, two-story, 40,000-square-foot cancer center that will sit along Route 15 near Bucknell University in East Buffalo Township. A construction tour for local media on Wednesday, March 4, 2026, showed concrete work for the radiation suite underway and frames for the infusion area being fitted.

Geisinger project leaders and construction staff have given mixed signals on timing: several site captions and project photos from the March 4 tour reference an August opening scheduled for 2026, while other materials describe the facility as expected to open later in 2026. Project delivery staff on site said work is in full swing but the organization has not settled on a single public opening date in its circulated materials.

The center will consolidate services currently offered at Geisinger’s Kelly Township location into the Lewisburg site and add services, including medical oncology, hematology oncology, radiation oncology, external beam radiation and treatment planning, and what Geisinger materials describe as the system’s first palliative care clinic in Union County. Rajiv Panikkar, M.D., chair of the Geisinger Cancer Institute, noted the local continuity and scale: “We’ve been taking care of folks with cancer in Union County for more than a decade in our existing Cancer Center, and we have this opportunity for a significant expansion of our services, of what we do, both in space, exam rooms, our treatment chairs, and also services.”

Facility specifications shown during the tour and in project summaries list a first-floor cancer center with 12 exam rooms and space on the second floor reserved for future growth. Sources differ on infusion capacity: some project materials and Panikkar’s remarks reference 14 infusion bays while construction captions and on-site descriptions refer to 15 infusion stations; the discrepancy appears in public project materials and photo captions from the March site visit. The radiation therapy room will sit inside a linear accelerator vault with thick concrete walls to contain radiation, a feature Quandel Enterprises superintendent Richard Himmelreich described while touring the build site with Geisinger staff.

Quandel Enterprises is serving as contractor and Patrick Jacobs, Geisinger Senior Director of Project Delivery, and Alex Zimmerman, Geisinger Central Region Chief Administrative Officer, were present at the March 4 construction tour alongside Andrea Wary, vice president of the Geisinger Cancer Institute. Geisinger says the $32 million price tag covers the full project, with about half of that amount going to construction and the remainder covering administrative costs and medical equipment needed to outfit the center.

When completed and operational later in 2026, the Lewisburg center is intended to expand local cancer treatment capacity and replace the Kelly Township location as services transfer to the new site. Geisinger and project staff continue to refine final counts for infusion stations and the schedule for phased openings as construction progresses.