Duke Raleigh Hospital plans to move its cramped wellness and fitness center to a much larger facility in an upscale retirement community at the nearby North Hills development.
The existing wellness facility is about 7,500 square feet in one of oldest buildings on the hospital’s campus. A new, 20,000 square-foot facility will be part of The Cardinal at North Hills, left, a $150 million retirement community that’s expected to open in 2011.
The new facility will aim to attract older customers interested in medically focused fitness, said Duke Raleigh spokeswoman Carla Parker Hollis. That’s a fast-growing market as Wake County’s senior population continues to surge.
“The market is pretty competitive when it comes to wellness,” Hollis said.
Rival Rex Healthcare, for example, has expanded its wellness business in Raleigh, Cary and Garner in recent years.
Duke Raleigh’s planned center will include a pool, fitness equipment, rehabilitation specialists and more. It also will have a built-in advantage: members will include residents of the Cardinal.
The 202-unit continuing care retirement community is being developed by partners that include Duke University Health System, which has owned the former Raleigh Community Hospital since 1998.
Other Cardinal partners include Kane Realty, the real estate firm behind the larger North Hills redevelopment, and Drucker & Falk, which manages apartments and other retirement communities.
The facility, which is expected to open in 2011, needed to sell half of its units before construction could start, and recently passed that mark, said Martha Grove Hipskind, Kane Realty’s director of senior living.
“Even in the middle of this economy, we’ve had consistent sales and hit this mark,” she said. Many of the future residents are from this region, but some are people who want to retire here.
Duke Raleigh officials haven’t decided what they’ll do with the building that houses the existing wellness center, Hollis said. The hospital’s leaders are working on a master plan for the campus that is expected to include various changes, including an expanded emergency department.
Assistant Business Editor Alan M. Wolf joined the N&O in 1999 covering the business of health care. He became an editor in 2001, and helps oversee the paper's daily business coverage and Sunday Work&Money section. He lives in Clayton with his wife and two children. Reach him at 919-829-4572 or 
