Northside Food Co-op Executive Director Cierra Washington speaks during the Greater Wilmington Business Journal's Power Breakfast on Wednesday. (Photo by Alec Hall)
The University of North Carolina Wilmington campus is slated to see $250 million to $400 million of investment in the next three to four years, Chancellor Aswani Volety said Wednesday during the Greater Wilmington Business Journal’s Power Breakfast.
The investments are part of Soar Higher, UNCW’s strategic plan, which envisions bringing a hotel and conference center, a new 500-bed residence hall and a welcome center to campus, along with renovations to Kenan Auditorium and other academic buildings.
“It is the roadmap as to what kind of things we want to be doing and where is UNCW going over the next 10 years,” Volety said about the strategic plan.
The investments are part of the university’s efforts to accommodate high-demand fields with a growing slate of academic programs, including advanced degree programs in engineering and health care.
“The goal is to make sure that we are preparing an educated and trained workforce so that you all can hire students that are job-ready,” Volety told attendees on Wednesday. “We want to make sure that we are creating academic programs that align with your community, not the ones we need today, but are we preparing students for the industries and jobs that are going to help our growth in the next 10, 20 years or so.”
In addition to the proposed investments at UNCW, Volety touted the university’s ongoing collaboration with local partners to create a health care worker pipeline, UNCW’s focus on the blue economy and the recent renovation of its on-campus library. University officials are also looking at expanding, renovating or building a new on-campus athletic arena or fieldhouse to accommodate UNCW's various sports programs. Volety was one of five speakers who addressed a sold-out crowd at Wilmington’s Convention Center on Wednesday.
Watch Volety speak at the Power Breakfast here:
Other speakers included Cierra Washington, executive director of the Northside Food Co-op; Novant Health’s Coastal Region President Ernie Bovio; Laura Brogdon-Primavera, the vice president of leadership development at the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce; and New Hanover Community Endowment CEO Dan Winslow.
Building a food co-op
Washington provided an update on the Northside Food Co-op’s efforts to bring a grocery store to Wilmington’s Northside neighborhood, highlighting new renderings of the proposed store and announcing its construction timeline. The group expects to break ground on the project in November 2025 and open the store in August 2026.
Washington outlined the years-long efforts to bring a grocery store to the Northside and the food co-op’s ongoing work to engage community members and plan sustainable operations for the store.
“We’re not looking for charity, we’re looking for sustainability,” Washington said.
The Northside Food Co-op aims to offer accessible groceries that are affordable and culturally relevant, she said, and focus on creative food procurement to help ensure competitive pricing.
The group is also focused on workforce development and aims to staff the grocery store with Northside community members. Washington announced that the group recently secured a $126,000 federal grant to develop a job training program that will be tailored to the needs of area residents.
Watch Washington speak at the Power Breakfast here:
Health care focus
Bovio highlighted the strategic framework and goals that will guide Novant Health’s Coastal Region in the coming years.
By 2030, the health system aims to be recognized as an employer of choice in the region, be in the top quartile or decile of publicly reported quality and safety measures and be in the top quartile or decile in patient satisfaction.
Since 2021, the health system has invested more than $600 million in capacity building in the Cape Fear Region, Bovio said, mostly in Novant Health’s Scotts Hill Medical Center which is set to open in 2026.
The health system also has $1 billion in proposed capital investments that are currently under review, including a new 120-bed tower proposed for New Hanover Regional Medical Center. The tower would house Novant’s Heart and Vascular Institute, freeing up space for general inpatient beds. Bovio said the proposed investment will be brought before the health system's board of governors for a vote this spring.
He also addressed a C grade Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center received in recent weeks from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services and national watchdog organization the Leapfrog Group.
Bovio said while the scores are key indicators for consumers to understand hospital performance, they rely on data that can be two to five years old.
“I’m not making excuses for that performance or that rating or trying to defend them. We weren’t at our best during that time period,” Bovio said, “but I can assure you that … those scores do not reflect our current performance or the care our patients are provided today.”
Watch Bovio speak at the Power Breakfast here:
Future workforce
Brogdon-Primavera discussed the growth of the chamber’s Career and Leadership Development Academy (CLDA), which allows seventh-grade students in New Hanover County to explore various careers through field trips and workplace visits.
The leadership academy launched in 2022 with 41 participating students. The next year, the program grew to include 88 seventh graders along with a mentorship program.
In its third year, the leadership academy has expanded to all seventh-grade students in New Hanover County with the support of $2.8 million from the North Carolina legislature.
“Starting this year, every seventh grader in New Hanover County Schools on the standard course of study has had the chance to be a part of this program," Brogdon-Primavera said, "and we’re talking thousands of students getting the chance to explore career options and connect with businesses and their staff and build skills that will carry them into the workforce or to further their education.”
Over the years, the CLDA has continued to grow with mentorship programs that aim to continue the academy’s impact on students as they move through high school, Brogdon-Primavera said.
Watch Brogdon-Primavera speak at the Power Breakfast here:
Endowment changes
In an interview with Business Journal editor Vicky Janowski, Winslow explained the endowment’s newly proposed grant structure and his approach to the foundation.
The newly proposed grant process, which was first announced during a public meeting on Tuesday, will combine the endowment’s strategic and responsive grants into investment categories, which will be awarded throughout the year. Categories include:
• Community grants: grants up to $5,000 sourced and recommended by the Community Advisory Council (CAC) and others;
• Capacity grants: grants for fiscal sponsors and innovation development;
• Project grants: one-time grants for a project or event;
• Operations grants: investment in established non-profits to boost outcomes;
• Strategic grants: three-to-five-year investments in pillar solutions; and
• Social impact investing: partnerships in major social problem-solving investments.
Winslow also discussed his vision of the endowment as “philanthropy-plus," which would involve receiving grant applications from local groups but also studying broader community problems and issuing requests for proposals to address them.
In the future, Winslow said he envisions establishing a new department inside the endowment to evaluate the impact and success of the grants the group issues.
