APEX, N.C. — North Carolina’s planned standalone children’s hospital picked up its largest private gift so far on Tuesday, when The Duke Endowment committed $100 million to the project at a news conference on the future hospital grounds in Apex.
North Carolina Children’s is a joint effort of Duke Health and UNC Health meant to serve young patients from every part of the state. Plans call for an acute-care hospital of about 500 beds, a separate behavioral health hospital with 70 beds, plus a big multispecialty clinic for kids with complicated medical and surgical needs.
The campus is planned inside Veridea, a mixed-use community covering about 1,100 acres that sits between Interstate 540 and US 1. Apex has also signed a contract of about $18 million for road work along Highway 55, including turn lanes and new signals, to handle traffic to the hospital site, and a new pump station will replace aging water lines in the area.
The full project is expected to cost around $3 billion, and leaders hope to raise about $1 billion of that from private donors. The endowment gift follows a $25 million pledge from Coca-Cola Consolidated earlier this year.
State lawmakers set aside another $208 million for the hospital in July, bringing the state’s total commitment to about $420 million. Leaders said the hospital will operate as an independent nonprofit and is not counting on ongoing state money once it opens.
Speaking at the announcement, NC Children’s chief operating officer Dr. Ian Buchanan said about 80% of North Carolina children live within a three-hour drive of the Apex site.
The Duke Endowment, created by James B. Duke in 1924, is a separate organization from Duke University’s own endowment. Construction is set to begin in 2027, with the hospital expected to open in the early 2030s.
Filed under: Outer Banks NC Health News
