Novant proposes hospital in Holly Springs

Novant Health wants to build a hospital in Holly Springs in a move that signals the company's intentions to compete full bore in the Triangle market.

The 46-bed, acute-cate facility would be the first hospital in the Triangle for Novant, a Winston-Salem company that already operates nine hospitals in the state. The Holly Springs facility would employ more than 200 people, the town said in a press release.

To build the hospital, Novant must win state approval. It plans to file for a "Certificate of Need" from the state on Aug. 15. A decision could come by March 2009.

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"This would help transform Holly Springs to a full-service community in almost every respect," Holly Springs Mayor Dick Sears said in a statement. "I'm confident our community will give Novant Health its enthusiastic endorsement and get behind this critically-important community project."

Holly Springs leaders have long wanted a health-care facility in their town, which they point out now has 20,000 residents, up from fewer than 1,000 in 1990. And health providers have been rushing to provide it for them - though, so far, without success.

Most recently, Rex Healthcare wasturned down by the statein its efforts to build a 9,000-square-foot urgent care facility in the town. Regulators with the state's Certificate of Need program, which is meant to keep down health-care costs, said the facility wasn't needed because there are urgent cares facilities nearby.

If Novant's hospital is approved and built, it would be Holly Springs' second largest private employer. Drug company Novartis is building a vaccine plant that ultimately should employ more than 350 people.

Approval of the hospital would signal Novant's arrival as a new competitor for the Triangle's many health-care providers. Novant, a not-for-profit organization, has inched into the area in the past few years - purchasing local practices, buying a chain of diagnostic imagine centers andtaking a 27 percent stakein Franklin Regional Medical Center in Louisburg. But it has yet to build a full-scale hospital here.