New Hanover commissioners approve NHRMC to buy Health Department

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — New Hanover County commissioners unanimously voted to allow New Hanover Regional Medical Center to purchase the county’s Health Department property at Monday’s meeting.

County Manager Chris Coudriet says doing this deal allows the county to support the hospital’s long-term growth needs and also fix its short-term parking problem.

“What’s next is to finalize the agreement, whereby we sell the property for $19 million to the hospital,” Coudriet said. “We will proceed with selecting a design team, and then we will move into the process of actual design.”

Coudriet says this will give the county an opportunity to have the county Health Department and the Department of Social Services in the same location in the future. He says while those are completely different departments, the client base is similar, so this will allow people to get those services at one place.