Two North Carolina-based university health systems plan to construct the state's first standalone children's hospital — an undertaking that its boosters said will change lives physically and economically for decades to come.

Duke Health and UNC Health are creating a new nonprofit, N.C. Children’s, to build and operate the 500-bed hospital. A site has not yet been chosen but is expected to be announced this summer. It will involve a campus of at least 100 acres with a children’s outpatient center and a children’s behavioral health hospital.