Home Care In Mebane, NC

Novant Health and Duke Health join forces in a strategic move that could reshape health care access in one of the Triad's fastest-growing cities. But another major health system is also eyeing the growing area.

Mebane has become the newest battleground for large Triad health systems.

Novant Health of Winston-Salem and Duke Health of Durham are eyeing another big step in advancing both their partnership and their individual efforts to expand outside their regions. Their newest target is Mebane, where they will compete with Cone Health of Greensboro for the rights to build a new hospital in the Triad's fastest-growing city.

Duke Health and Novant Health have filed an application with the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services to build a $225 million, 46-bed hospital on land Duke owns along Gregory Poole Lane on the Alamance County side of Mebane next to a mixed-use development coming from Koury Corp. and off the same interstate exit as the Bucee's coming to Mebane.

Triad Business Journal reported earlier this week that Cone Health has applied for a $275 million, 46-bed hospital in Mebane.

In the certificate-of-need proposal put forth by Novant and Duke, they would evenly split the proposed capital expenditure for the project, paying $112.5 million each, according to the project application. The health systems filed the application alongside Alamance Health Company LLC, a newly formed entity through which Duke and Novant are equal members.

This the first major move to come from a recent partnership the two health systems unveiled in March. At the time, the health systems said they would work together to jointly develop new offices and facilities to "expand access to affordable, high-quality care."

The organizations say the proposed Mebane hospital would enhance competition and improve access in a fast-growing area. "Duke Novant Mebane Hospital is not only responsive to current need, it is a forward-looking investment in the health and well-being of this rapidly evolving community," the application says.

In addition to 46 acute care beds, the hospital would have 10 emergency department exam rooms, eight observation beds, one dedicated C-section operating room, two procedure rooms and other imaging and ancillary services.

The Alamance Health Company would own and operate the hospital, if the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services approves the application. The proposal is in response to the 2025 State Medical Facilities Plan, which identified a need for 46 acute care beds in Alamance County.

This is the latest effort by Novant Health to build its presence in North Carolina and reach its goal of being the largest health system in the Carolinas. Novant has a major presence in Charlotte, Winston-Salem and Greenville and has also expanded into South Carolina, but its recents efforts to expand in both the Triangle and Asheville markets have been denied by NCDHHS.

Duke Health is also looking to epxand outside the Triangle. This is the second application Duke has filed this year to expand its reach in Mebane, where it already operates a primary care clinic. The health system in February filed an application to acquire a fixed MRI scanner in a project expected to cost about $7.39 million.

Duke also recently closed a $284 million deal to acquire Lake Norman Regional Medical Center — now named Duke Health Lake Norman Hospital — in Mooresville from a subsidiary of Community Health Systems (NYSE: CYH). Novant Health had previously attempted to acquire the Lake Norman hospital but gave up on the effort after running into objections from the FTC.

The hospital would be adjacent to the $255 million mixed-use project that Greensboro-based Koury is developing on about 80 acres along Trollingwood-Hawfields Road. Koury's plans call for 645 apartment units and 38 townhomes, and Target Corp. told Triad Business Journal that it plans a store of approximately 128,000 square feet to anchor the retail side of the development.

Novant and Duke are facing competition from Cone Health. In addition to the 46 beds, the Cone hospital would include 15 emergency department bays, three general operating rooms and two procedure rooms, among other services. Cone Health Mebane Hospital would sit at 103 Medical Park Drive, adjacent to Cone Health MedCenter Mebane.

More than two years after rezoning for residential-retail project, the upstate South Carolina developer behind the new Topgolf in Greensboro updates its plans for former Kingsdown factory in the heart of the Triad’s fastest growing city.

More than two years after getting rezoning approval, a South Carolina developer has resumed movement on a mixed residential-retail project in the heart of the Triad’s fastest growing municipality.

Mebane’s staff technical review committee has received an updated plan from Realty Link of Greenville, South Carolina, for the long-unused former site of the iconic Kingsdown mattress factory in the city’s historic district.

Mebane City Council approved a rezoning in October 2022 for the site, when plans called for 217 apartment units, about 9,000 square feet of commercial space and 4,200 square feet of event space. The remaining factory and administrative buildings were torn down in the fall of 2023, except for one, which was to be preserved under the developer’s plans.

The new plan calls for 87 residential units in all, spread among several buildings of six or five three-bedroom townhouses with two-vehicle garages and two surface parking spaces.

Also in the plans is a proposed retail pavilion of 2,000 square feet and 9,600 square feet of other retail space. The pavilion is shown where the remaining historical building stands.

For overflow parking, the developer has a lease agreement with nearby Mebane United Methodist Church to use a lot of 40 spaces across Holt Street. It won’t be available on Sundays during services or on Wednesday evening and will require a waiver of a rule regarding nonresidential parking in residential districts.

The name in the recently filed plan is “District on Washington.”

It’s on about 5.7 acres across four parcels spanning the entire block between Second and Third Streets and Washington and Holt Streets, as well as about half the block between Third and Fourth Streets.

NC Mebane Holt, an LLC associated with Realty Link, paid $3.3 million for the property in June 2023. The seller was Burlington Central Park LLC of Chapel Hill. Kingsdown had sold it in 2019 for $1.5 million.

Realty Link developed the Greensboro Topgolf that opened in September.

The Mebane site is separated from Mebane’s downtown retail and entertainment district centered on Clay Street by U.S. 70 and the railroad tracks used by freight and Amtrak passenger trains. It’s in the middle of what’s referred to as the historic district developed in the late 19^th and early 20^th century. Across Holt Street is a district of single-family homes, and the project was opposed by many neighbors when it was before the city in 2022.

Mebane on the whole has grown nearly 11% from 2020 through mid-2023 to 20,212, making it the Triad’s fastest-growing municipality, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual estimates out last May. Most residential development, however, has been on the edges of the community, and the former factory project would be the only new major multi-family site in the city's downtown.

The application for a state certificate of need for advanced equipment signals the health system's plans for growing city.

Duke University Health is seeking a state certificate of need for a nearly $7.4 million MRI facility in Mebane, where it owns about 15 acres of land acquired in 2021 next to the site of a retail-residential complex planned by Greensboro’s Koury Corp.

Duke Health applied in February for the MRI, describing the project as acquiring a fixed MRI scanner pursuant to the 2025 state medical facilities plan need determination, according to the department’s log of certificate of need applications.

The state Department of Health and Human Services published notice of the application March 14.

The scanner would be located at a diagnostic center called Duke Imaging Mebane, according to the application log.

There is no address associated with the application. Duke Health did not respond to a request for elaboration as of this writing on Thursday afternoon.

Durham-based Duke Health operates a primary care facility on Mebane Oaks Road in Mebane, and provides primary, pediatric and internal medicine services care at the Kernodle Clinic less than a mile away.

In 2021, it acquired a site on Gregory Poole Road off Trollingwood-Hawfields Road just outside the Mebane city limits. Construction on a new office building started in 2022 but has since stopped.

The site is adjacent to land where Koury Corp. won approval in December for annexation and initial zoning for a $255 million complex combining retail with some 645 apartments and 38 townhomes. Earlier this month, Target Corporation confirmed it plans a store there, Mebane’s first in the Minnesota-based chain.

Koury representatives told Mebane City Council in December they’d be interested in working with Duke Health but that the hospital system’s property was not part of its plans.

Mebane, the fastest-growing municipality in the Triad so far this decade, does not have a full-service hospital but has locations of at least three major regional health systems. In addition to the Duke sites, Cone Health's MedCenter Mebane consists of an urgent care facility along with primary care, certain specialties, a surgical center, and outpatient physical therapy services. UNC Health also has primary-care and specialty offices in Mebane.

The Greensboro health system buys about 8 acres adjacent to its medical center in one of the Triad's fastest growing municipalities but says what will go there isn't decided.

Cone Health, through its Alamance Regional Medical Center based in Burlington, has bought about eight acres of land adjacent to its medical center in Mebane, but isn’t saying yet what it plans to do with the property.

The three parcels, of about 4 acres, 3.6 acres and a half-acre, are on Mebane Oaks Road, Mebane’s main retail road and adjacent to the rear of the site of the Cone Health Medcenter Mebane.

Alamance Regional paid about $6.9 million for the three parcels, according to a deed recorded in Alamance County March 14. The seller was Mebane Oaks LLC of Durham.

The parcels have the addresses of 901, 903 and 907 Mebane Oaks Road. The property includes an auto oil change service, a closed furniture store and a small hotdog restaurant.

“Being adjacent to Cone Health MedCenter Mebane makes this a strategic purchase for Cone Health, system spokesman Doug Allread said in a statement.

“While our exact plans are being determined, Cone Health looks forward to adding enhanced medical services to those already being delivered at MedCenter Mebane.”

It’s the latest sign of increased attention on Mebane and surrounding communities by the region’s largest health systems.

Cone’s MedCenter Mebane is the largest single-site facility, with a seven-day urgent care service, with primary care, a handful of specialties, out-patient surgical services, pediatrics and physical therapy, as well as leased primary-care offices elsewhere in the city.

Duke University Health has applied for a state certificate of need for fixed MRI service. No address is in its application, but the organization has about 15 acres on the city’s western edge, on Gregory Poole Lane off Trollingwood Road.

UNC Health also has a primary care office nearby.

Mebane is the fastest growing municipality in the Triad through the decade so far, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual population estimates released last May, growing nearly 11% from 2020 through mid-year 2023.

Mike Orlando, vice president at Realty Trust Group, healthcare real estate advisory and services firm in Greensboro, said there are available beds approved under North Carolina’s certificate of need system for Alamance County, so it would make sense that Mebane is a sought-after community. Whether it’s yet large enough for its own hospital remains a question, he added in a brief interview Monday.