Some more angles of Walter this afternoon as well as Cardinal riding out the ground.
Over at the old JC Penny site, demolition is complete and site grading is well underway.
There’s also two new mobile cranes where the NHID is to be.
25 Likes
The state approved UNC’s request to build a new hospital in RTP, across the street from Hub RTP and Frontier RTP!
State law requires Health and Human Services to control how many beds and operating rooms hospitals are allowed to build (which is kinda bullshit if you ask me, but oh well). They found that Durham County’s in need of 40 additional inpatient beds and four ORs. This approval means they preferred UNC’s expansion plans over other providers -though places like Duke Health could still object over this in court.
If UNC can slip past such a proceeding, the $250M facility could be up and running by 2026, employing about 300 people. This is slightly earlier than what we learned when we last heard about this project earlier this year.
You can read more about it on the N&O/Herald-Sun or TBJ.
7 Likes
Somewhat off-topic, doesn’t it seem we are severely under-supplied with hospitals here in the Triangle? I would imagine a lot of it is just catching up to population growth, but the H&HS requirements that you mention make me wonder if that’s the real reason.
5 Likes
Sort of related but Wake Med is poised to announcer their Wendell Falls campus plans in the next month or so
7 Likes
Honestly, I’m not sure. HHS is obviously putting in an artificial limit on the Triangle’s supply of hospital beds, yeah, but how much things would change without that law is much less clear to me.
If you want an objective answer to that, you have to know how many people want/need to be hospitalized but aren’t, as well as how much that impacts costs. The former question is unknowable, and the latter is an extension of a multibillion-dollar boogeyman in the healthcare business world. Keep in mind, too, that we just started being able to compare treatment prices between hospitals this past year, and that information is still unavailable, unclear, or incomplete in a lot of places. So it’s hard to know how many hospitals we need when hospitals work in such an incomplete market.
And if that wasn’t enough, we have a global shortage of healthcare workers that even the Triangle isn’t immune to:
So… maybe we need more hospitals? But I don’t think it’s that clear -especially since many of the big hospitals in our area serve people across the country and around the world, too, rather than just in the Triangle.
5 Likes
We are literally in the middle of a pandemic where the ERs and ICUs are overflowing, and people are saying we don’t need more hospitals?
5 Likes
Nobody has ever adequately explained to me why a certificate of need is required, or even why it’s a good idea in any respect. I’m sure it’s a very legitimate reason and not a grift. Good thing medical services in these great United States are super reliable and inexpensive
1 Like
It was apparently a part of Social Security reforms back in the 70s to deal with worries about the over-saturation of hospitals and poor-quality/unnecessary medical treatments. States were also financially incentivized by the federal government to do this, but that carrot was removed in the 80s.
This bipartisan lobbying group’s website has this easy-to-read list of pros and cons about certificates of need:
I personally don’t think it’s a good idea, either, since I think you could get all but the last “pro” arguments through other means. This is probably one of the few times I’ll ever agree with a John Locke libertarian.
4 Likes
Yes, I don’t think any of the “pro” arguments have any merit. Don’t want low-quality care? Regulate it (we already do). Areas underserved by private hospitals? Allocate public hospital capacity (we already do). You can’t credibly read any of that without concluding that it only benefits the supply side of the healthcare industry
2 Likes
Does anyone know of a rendered photo of what Midtown is going to look like once all of these new developments are in, or is there only the ones of the individual projects.
1 Like
I’ve only seen renderings for the individual projects but it would be interesting to see what the area will look like once it’s all built. Here’s a pic I took today of the midtown project. They’ve put some streets in and completed a lot of grading.
20 Likes
Lol would love to see the 400 foot mobile crane they would need.
I’m sorry in advance for the long update, but there’s a lot going on around here. They aren’t messing around with Cardinal Tower and they’re already pouring the 4th floor!
53 Likes
Never Apologize for loading multiple pictures they are amazing and the main reason I come on here. I love how fast they are working here its exciting
21 Likes
I’m only here for the pictures 
9 Likes
Unbelievable, Kane is on fire
5 Likes
Woah I feel like the first part of NH Main District is not long for this world once the current redevelopment phase is done. The hotel will look super dated next to the new towers next door.
8 Likes
Bingo ! Remember the original North hill plans Kane had was alot more ambitious than Raleigh folks could handle at that time so the older district is a scaled down version of his original plans we could very well see some of those beige baby buildings lol, being redeveloped with multiple stories of apts above retail like he originally wanted for the main district.
4 Likes