Highwoods Properties announced today that it has signed a long-term lease with Duke Medicine to occupy all of the company's 60,000 square foot Riverbirch building in Durham.

Highwoods will spend $12.7 million converting the 23-year-old office building into a medical office building, including adding a gurney-sized elevator, covered patient drop-off and a parking deck.

The redevelopment is to be completed by the end of the year.

For Highwoods, the deal is yet another sign of the real estate investment trust flexing its financial muscle. 

Duke Medicine has leased 47,000 square feet in Patterson Place II, a mixed-use development in Durham at Interstate 40 and Highway 15-501.

Duke is occupying most of the space in a 60,000 square-foot medical office building.

Patterson Place II also includes 35,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, 15,000 of which has been purchased or leased.

AT&T Mobility has already opened in the building and Moe’s Southwest Grill, Five Guys Burgers & Fries and Applebee’s Neighborhood Bar and Grill are all scheduled to open by the first quarter of 2011.

A 130-room Springhill Suites by Marriott will open April 23rd.

Lincoln Harris developed the project.

The Triangle is home to two research universities that often make news for medical breakthroughs and whose treatment facilities are sought out by patients from near and far.

One such patient arrived at Duke Medical Center last summer with failing lungs from repeated infections due to a faulty immune system.  In Sunday's N&O, read about the bold course of treatment undertaken by Duke doctors that resulted in a sparkly teenager going home this week to start life anew.

Linda Williams

Senior Editor

A local initiative in Durham attempting to map out the the city's ills, neighborhood by neighborhood, was lauded Monday by the nations' top doctor.

U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjami was in town to speak during the 9th annual Durham Health Summit.

She praised the Durham Health Innovations project, a collaboration between Duke and local public and private health officials and practitioners. 

The project, funded through the National Institutes of Health and $1 million from Duke Medicine, endeavors to go into Durham's neighborhoods to figure out who needs what type of care and how to convince them to get it.

Durham officials hope the project, if successful, can be used as a national model.

Benjamin thinks so as well.

For more, check out today's story.

Duke broke ground today on a big new cancer center, one half of a $700 million construction project designed at least in part to enhance the health care system's global brand.

The cancer center, slated to open in 2012, follows a similar project at UNC Chapel Hill, which just opened its own cancer hospital.

The Duke facility will put cancer research and clinical services under one roof and will come as cancer rates continue to rise. The N.C. health department has predicted a 16 percent hike in cancer cases from 2006 to 2011, with a 21 percent hike in the Triangle over that same time period.

Jarring stuff, and sobering enough to prompt Gov. Beverly Perdue, who attended the Friday ceremony, to say "I don't ask if I'll be diagnosed, but when, because it's so prevalent among us."

For more, read Saturday's News & Observer.

With the big Duke/UNC showdown looming Sunday in Chapel Hill, the folks over at Duke Medicine are posing an interesting question about this historic rivalry: Doesn't this rivalry — a disease, if you will — require a name?

 They're asking for suggestions here. So far, a few good ones include "Bluekeymia,""Blue Fever," "Rivalopathy," DukeUncOlogy," and my favorite, "Hooping Cough."

Anyone got a better suggestion? Let 'er rip!

In case you missed it: The tram that has for 30 years ferried folks back and forth between Duke's hospitals and its outpatient clinics is being retired.

Read on.

The folks over at Duke Medicine have unveiled a new information website this week.

It is Inside Duke Medicine, a jazzy offshoot of the print version provided for employees of the Duke health care system.

Check it out here.