A proposal by WakeMed to build a $20 million ambulatory surgery center in the Brier Creek area of Raleigh has been denied by state regulators.

According to state documents obtained by The Progressive Pulse, WakeMed received word last week on its plan to relocate four operating rooms from a proposed Day Surgery Center at its Apex Healthplex to a new facility to be developed at Brier Creek. The Progressive Pulse, a blog of N.C. Policy Watch, notes there was not enough interest among doctors for a surgical center in Apex, prompting WakeMed to revise its plans. The Apex Healthplex facility is located less than four and a half miles from WakeMed Cary, a full service hospital.

As NBC 17 reported in early May, the state Division of Health Service Regulation also denied WakeMed's plan to build a freestanding emergency department in the Brier Creek area. Others are housed in Apex and North Raleigh.  A third will open in 2009 in the Wendell Falls subdivision in eastern Wake County.

WakeMed has already filed an appeal on the emergency department decision and will likely appeal this latest ruling.