North Carolina Children’s Health confirmed Thursday that it would build the state’s first standalone children's hospital in Apex — a multibillion-dollar project that is expected to bring thousands of jobs to western Wake County.
The group — a partnership between UNC Health and Duke Health — plans to build on a 230-acre tract in the town’s long-planned Veridea development, executives said.
The project is expected to transform a wide swath of the growing western Wake County town, paving the way for a 500-bed hospital, a behavioral health center, an ambulatory care center and research facilities. It is also expected to spur the additional development of hotels, restaurants, shops and offices to support the hospital campus.
If fully realized, the campus would create about 8,000 direct jobs in western Wake, plus another possible 18,000 indirect jobs, state officials estimated. All told, the the development could add $27 billion to the state economy, making it one of the biggest economic development projects in state history. The university partners aim to break ground on the new campus in 2027. Construction is expected to take about six years.
"It's going to save lives," North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein told WRAL in an interview Thursday. "But it's also going to be an incredible economic driver. It's going to be one of the leading institutions for child children, medicine, research, development. There's going to be all this ancillary growth happening around the hospital that's going to help to grow our economy for decades to come."
UNC and Duke announced the scope of the hospital project in January. Executives said at the time that the hospital would be built in the Triangle, but they hadn't disclosed a specific site until Thursday. WRAL News first reported the plans to build in Apex on Wednesday.
The partners scouted about 15 properties in several counties, hospital executives said Thursday. They targeted sites with easy access to their respective campuses, major road networks and amenities for families who would travel from across the state and beyond to stay for indefinite periods. They also wanted a campus with land for expansion.
“This property meets all those criteria, and it was absolutely unequivocally the clear choice,” Craig Albanese, chief executive of Duke Health, said Thursday during an event at Apex Town Hall.
The 1,100-acre Veridea project, which was first announced in 2009 but has yet to see vertical construction, is bound by a trio of major roads: N.C. 55 to the east and the intersection of U.S. 1 and N.C. 540 to the west. Being close to an airport and roads such as N.C. 540 — which loops around Wake County, connecting to the region’s biggest highways — were key considerations for the project.
The NC Children’s campus would be integrated into Veridea, which is zoned for up to 8,000 new homes, 3.5 million square feet of shops and restaurants, 12 million square feet of office and research space. A new Wake Tech Community College campus would be built along with the hospital. It will also be designed with young patients in mind — focused on the needs of children who need complex care for chronic illnesses or behavioral health.
Health care rivals in the region — including UNC, Duke and WakeMed — currently treat children in existing general hospitals, which dedicate units to pediatric care. But the fast-growing region has been running out of pediatric hospital beds and doesn’t have enough specialty services to keep up with demand, pediatricians say. Organizers expect the new hospital will help bring more — and more advanced — medical care to more children.
North Carolina's current pediatric units currently don’t have the ability to build broad-based, highly specialized pediatric care, hospital executives say. As a result, thousands of sick kids each year have to transfer between hospitals or outside of North Carolina for treatment.
“North Carolina children's is more than a health initiative — it is a transformational investment in our economy, and it's a promise to the families of North Carolina that we are committed to developing and delivering world class care right here at home,” North Carolina Commerce Secretary Lee Lilley said.
The campus will serve as an “engine of innovation,” he said, adding that the project would complement and benefit from the major research universities that gave the Triangle its name — as well as major biotech investments in southern and western Wake County, which has become a life-sciences hub. The universities expect that kind of collaboration to draw pediatric subspecialists, researchers, residents and fellows to the hospital.
Apex Mayor Jacques K. Gilbert called it “a golden moment for our community.”
Funding riddle
The hospital is projected to cost about $3 billion — a figure that could grow the longer it takes to come out of the ground. Critical to the plan is state funding, which remains uncertain.
Legislative leaders are at an impasse over the state budget, and the hospital — a pet project of state Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham — has emerged as a sticking point in the negotiations. Lawmakers are sparring in large part over ways to cut government spending to make good on promises to cut tax rates.
State leaders credited Berger with pushing through the initial state pledge of $319.7 million for the hospital, which was approved as part of the 2023 state budget and has helped the partners fund early-stage planning.
The Senate’s proposed 2025 budget calls for investing an additional $535.5 million in the 500-bed pediatric hospital. If the chamber gets its way, the appropriation would bring total state funding to about $855.2 million — nearly 30% the projected cost. It was one of the biggest earmarks in the Senate’s spending plan, which would cover the two years ending June 30, 2027.
The House, however, has proposed to reduce the already-approved funding for the project by more than $100 million. The chambers must agree on a final spending plan for any of the additional spending to flow to the project. To fund the balance of the construction costs, beyond the state funds, it is likely UNC and Duke would have to invest some of their own money while also relying on donations from individuals or philanthropic groups.
Speaking at the kickoff event Thursday, Wesley Burks, the chief executive of UNC Health, made a point to thank Berger, House Speaker Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, and Stein for the previous funding commitment.
Stein is optimistic more funding will come. "At the end of the day, we will pass a budget that makes the right investments in North Carolina, and this is one of those important investments," the governor said Thursday.
The main source of state funding for the hospital comes from a nearly $2 billion payment from the federal government — essentially a signing bonus — authorized under former President Joe Biden in exchange for North Carolina approving Medicaid expansion in 2023. And that could be a complicating factor.
North Carolina's Medicaid expansion program will be eliminated, however, under President Donald Trump’s budget plan — unless state lawmakers change state law and save the program, taking on potentially billions of dollars in Medicaid funding responsibilities.
If Medicaid expansion goes away in North Carolina, or even if it doesn't, it's possible that Trump or a future president might try to force the state to pay back its Biden-era signing bonus. Trump has already moved to claw back some federal funds that were paid out before he took office. Some of his attempts have been blocked in court, but others have worked.
“If that money is compromised somehow, or put into question, then we would need to find an alternative source of funding for the NC Children’s hospital,” Kristin Walker, the state’s budget director, told lawmakers in March.
Veridea rising
Securing the land for the hospital in the meantime, while other funding is worked out, protects the university partners from surging land costs in a region where large, undeveloped tracts are increasingly scarce and highly coveted by commercial and residential developers.
The hospital partners benefitted from the fact that the land is owned by an entity friendly to the state’s interests. The North Carolina Retirement System is the majority owner in RXR Len Apex Owner LLC, the partnership that currently owns the land. RXR Realty, a New York real estate investment firm, is the minority partner, according to the state treasurer’s office, which oversees the pension plan.
The group acquired roughly 1,000 acres for Veridea for $91 Million in 2023. The total Veridea project size is projected to be 1,109 acres with an estimated land acquisition cost of $122 million, according to the treasurer’s office.
The sale of the 227-acre parcel to the hospital is expected to close in early 2026. Financial details of the deal weren’t disclosed. Significant infrastructure costs have already been covered by the current owners, which could help speed the hospital’s development.
“This sale is a win for everybody involved,” State Treasurer Brad Briner said Thursday. “It's a win for our retirees and for the North Carolina pension system. We're making a modest profit and unlocking more value in the land that is adjacent. It's a win for North Carolina Children's, gaining over 230 acres with incredible access to transportation infrastructure at a very good price. It's a win for Apex and Wake County and, above all, it's a win for the 11 million North Carolinians who deserve world class pediatric care right here at home.”
Veridea has been in the works for more than 15 years. When it was announced in 2009, it was projected to eventually create up to 30,000 jobs and add $6 billion in tax revenue. But the ambitious project has been slow to materialize.
The sale to the hospital is expected to bring it to life. The pension fund also plans to sell parcels to Wake Tech, Wake County Schools and home builder Lennar, leaving about 530 acres to develop once those sales close.
In an initial development phase at Veridea, developers plan to build 1,100 single-family homes and townhomes, up to 1,500 apartments, 200,000 square feet of shops and the Wake Tech campus. The project also calls for 1.3 million square feet of industrial space for logistics and life sciences. The first apartments are expected to be available in 2027, according to the Veridea website.