By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer
UNC Health Care is finalizing plans for a new medical facility near the Durham Tech campus in Hillsborough.
Health care system officials have signed a letter of intent to buy 85 acres in the Waterstone development just off of I-40 at exit 261, according to Karen McCall, UNC Hospitals vice president of pubic affairs and marketing.
Planners are working to finalize the scope and scale of the facility, she said, including whether to include in-patient facilities as well as ambulatory care.
The $17.5 million for the land will come from the UNC Health Care capital fund.
McCall said a recent article posted online at the UNC Alumni Association website was premature and that an announcement about plans will likely come later this month.
The alumni association article, posted March 30, states that the new facility will be a 100-bed full-service hospital and cites health care systems CEO and UNC medical school dean Bill Roper as saying it is moving ahead as a result of a decision in February not to build a new 300-patient tower on the main campus.
McCall said the number of beds in Hillsborough has not been determined. She said the hospital still plans to add the new patient tower, but that building on campus around existing buildings is much more difficult than on new sites.
“It’s not a question of not doing the tower, it’s not doing it now,†she said.
Like a new 25-bed hospital in Chatham County, which UNC opened last year, a new facility in Hillsborough will be easier to construct and open, McCall said.
Once plans are finalized, UNC Health Care will file for a certificate of need and, if certified, could open the new hospital by 2014.