Stance in Focus

Improving Lives by Design isn’t just our tagline – it’s the barometer that holds us accountable to our mission. We measure that impact by reflecting on recent projects, where our products support patients, providers, and visitors in healing environments. At the recently revitalized University of Alabama (UAB) Cooper Green Mercy Health clinic, Stance products shine alongside a thoughtful layout, staff-informed workflow, and overall modernized approach to rural healthcare delivery.

Cooper Green offers multi-specialty outpatient care services. Its mission is “to provide all residents of Jefferson County with respectful, complete, and patient-centered care that helps them achieve better health and a higher quality of life, regardless of their ability to pay.”

As a furniture provider with 20 years of experience focused on healthcare, Stance was the ideal partner to specify for this unique project, which required an all-new lens on an outdated facility in a high-need area.

The new $120 million, 207,000 square-foot Cooper Green Clinic opened on the site of the former Cooper Green Hospital parking deck in late 2024. Its original building, which opened in 1972, was designed for inpatient and emergency services but transitioned to multi-specialty ambulatory care in 2013. In 2020, a UAB Medicine-led health authority assumed day-to-day operations at the facility from Jefferson County.

“Operating a multi-specialty clinic in the space of an old hospital was inefficient at best and very expensive, because we still had so much overhead that we were trying to manage and repairs to make,” said Cooper Green Mercy Health Services Authority CEO David Randall. “It felt like the old hospitals of the ‘70s – dark hallways, cinder block walls – certainly not inviting.” Enter: Stance and the visionary team at MB Design Elements, partnering to create an experience that feels, looks, and delivers for end-users better.

The new wing has expanded existing outpatient services, including primary care and specialty care clinics, and added several new services. Saving travel time and worries for rural patients, the convenient new MRI suite allows more imaging to be done in-house, including doubling mammogram capacity. In addition to the new clinical resources, all who enter the facility also enjoy a refreshed emotional and aesthetic experience, thanks to colors, textures, and sight lines that conjure calm – with Stance products playing a significant part.

Cooper Green selected two of Stance’s most popular seating collections, Cassia and our award-winning Jensen, for waiting and lounge areas. Supporting a more relaxed wait area experience through our signature emphasis on unexpected comfort, Cassia and Jensen balance the environment with soothing aesthetics and easy-clean surfaces that make infection control a breeze.

Continuing Stance’s positive impact on Behavioral Healthcare environments at Cooper Green, our Jensen chairs built for Behavioral Health were also appointed for the facility’s high-use areas.

Stance’s products are built to deliver the unexpected through furniture, much like the facility’s visionaries expected something different from rural healthcare delivery through the new Cooper Green.

“My hope is for Cooper Green to be a national benchmark for how we engage those underserved communities we serve, and I think we’re on path to do that,” said Cooper Green Mercy Health Services Authority CEO David Randall.

Whether it’s replacing old with new or anxiety with calm, Stance is always honored to partner with facility planners, healthcare executives, and designers to reimagine what’s possible together in healthcare environments. Learn more about Cooper Green here and browse Stance’s versatile seating collections, built to support healthcare facilities of all sizes and needs, here.