UNC Health buys West Asheville shopping center for planned hospital
UNC Health paid $19.9 million for Westgate Shopping Center, moving its planned 92-bed hospital onto a live West Asheville retail corridor. The purchase puts tenants, traffic and Patton Avenue in play.
UNC Health paid $19.9 million for Westgate Shopping Center and adjoining parcels in West Asheville, pushing its planned 92-bed hospital onto a site that sits off Patton Avenue near Interstate 240. The purchase gives the health system a physical footprint for UNC Health West, a proposal that would turn one of Asheville’s oldest shopping centers into a medical campus if state regulators approve it.
UNC Health filed its certificate-of-need application on June 18, seeking approval for an acute-care hospital with emergency services, intensive care, labor and delivery, neonatal care, cardiology, gastroenterology, radiology, behavioral health, speech pathology, physical therapy and occupational therapy. The expansion is meant to bring more choice, shorter wait times and patient-centered care closer to home for Buncombe County and surrounding mountain counties, including Clay, Graham, Madison and Yancey. It is one of four competing bids for the county’s new acute-care beds, alongside Mission Hospital, AdventHealth and Novant Health. A public hearing on the four applications was scheduled for 10 a.m. Aug. 19 at A-B Tech’s Ferguson Auditorium.
Current tenants include Earth Fare, The Village Potters and Second Gear, and several businesses moved there after Hurricane Helene damaged their previous locations.
Developer George B. Coggins opened Westgate in 1956, and it was North Carolina’s first mall. Bon Marché opened a Westgate location that same year, and Earth Fare first opened there in 1994.
If the project clears state approval, UNC Health expects the hospital to open by 2032.
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