A version of the following article appeared in the October 16, 2026, edition of The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with local business-y news and insights for Charlotte, N.C.
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The hospital is part of a five-year, $340M investment in mental health care that aims to close major gaps in the state’s mental health care system
Gene Woods, CEO of Atrium Health parent company Advocate Health, announced a $340M, five-year investment in mental health care on Thursday. (Photo: Michelle Crouch/Charlotte Ledger & NC Health News)
by Michelle Crouch
Co-published with North Carolina Health News
When Atrium Health CEO Gene Woods first visited Atrium Health’s behavioral health hospital on Randolph Road in Charlotte 10 years ago, the facility was already in need of an upgrade.
“The building was showing its age then, and it is certainly showing its age now," he recalled Thursday.
Woods, who is now CEO of Atrium parent Advocate Health, said he remembers thinking that the staff and patients deserved a better facility. Now, a decade later, it’s happening.
On Thursday, Atrium announced a $340M, five-year investment in mental health care that includes a new behavioral health hospital off David Taylor Drive in University City.
The hospital will have 168 inpatient beds for children and adults, as well as a mental health emergency department, outpatient services, high-tech treatment devices and programs for people who need intensive treatment but don’t need to stay overnight. It’s expected to open in 2028.
Rendering of future behavioral health hospital near Mallard Creek. (Courtesy of Atrium Health)
Once the hospital opens, Atrium will move the 66 beds at its existing Randolph Road center to the new facility – meaning the hospital will add a net total of 102 beds.
The expansion aims to address a critical shortage of psychiatric facilities in Charlotte and across the state. Patients can be stranded for days or weeks in hospital emergency departments – a highly stressful environment for someone in a mental health crisis – while they wait for a bed to become available.
Over the past six years, Atrium’s mental health-related ER visits have increased 13%, the hospital said, with adolescents accounting for 17% of those visits.
“Right now, at the end of every day, with all of our beds full, we still have about 50 patients waiting in our emergency rooms,” said Lisa McCanna, vice president of the behavioral health service line at Atrium Health. “So the first thing is getting people more quickly to a place where they can receive care.”
Rendering of a room at the future hospital. (Courtesy of Atrium Health)
Instead of building the hospital from the ground up, Atrium is spending $200M to convert a 159,000-square-foot, four-story office building. Officials said that allows them to open the hospital 12 to 18 months sooner.
Atrium says its investment will also pay to expand outpatient services and day hospital programs across the Charlotte region, including rural and underserved areas.
Atrium said the new hospital will accept Medicaid, uninsured patients and those who are involuntarily committed.
Atrium’s initiative is the second major mental health project in the works in Charlotte. In east Charlotte, the Katie Blessing Center is scheduled to open in 2027, with 72 psychiatric treatment beds for children and teens, as well as a behavioral health urgent care and outpatient services. It will be the largest pediatric behavioral health facility in the state.
Michelle Crouch covers health care. If you have tips or ideas for her, please shoot her an email at [email protected].
This article is part of a partnership between The Charlotte Ledger and North Carolina Health News to produce original health care reporting focused on the Charlotte area.
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