Finding 100 acres under a single owner that’s currently on the commercial market would be tough, but I’m pretty sure that an institution like RTF, RDU, UNC, or NCSU could find room within their campuses, all of which were intended for biomedical research:
- RTF itself owns the 82.5 acre Site 8, though it’s awkwardly wrapped around a hunting club. It also owns another 100 acres across several parcels on Louis Stephens Dr, sandwiched between Parkside Town Common and the (282 acre) Apple campus.
- Alexandria REIT, which develops life sciences real estate (customers include Boston Children’s Hospital), owns 600? acres of RTP. At the I-885 Cornwallis exit, they have the mostly-vacant 100-acre Genesis Way tract, across from the 132-acre former Burroughs Wellcome campus that United Therapeutics owns.
- UNC has about 250 developable acres on the Horace Williams Airport tract, though TBH they’ve been sitting on that for decades.
- NCSU Centennial Campus Spring Hill District (between Dix Park and Centennial Pkwy) is 130 acres.
Rezoning of RTP will open up a lot of development rights, and enable the hospital’s ancillary uses. Many of the existing landowners would be happy to sell their newly excess land for a hospital, and several (like Alexandria) are in that business. Plus, UNC is already planning a hospital inside RTP. (The RTP hospital is a clever way for UNC to reach the western Wake market by telling the state it’s creating competition for Duke in Durham.)
There’s also all that state-owned land around Blue Ridge / Wade / Edwards Mill, conveniently already state-owned and close to UNC Rex + surrounding medical offices. It’s probably the only site worth considering in Raleigh.