Evolution Healthcare’s $526m national expansion

NZ Herald

28 September 2026

Privately owned Evolution Healthcare has a $526 million expansion plan which includes leasing nearly half the ex-One NZ building at Takapuna’s Smales Farm for one of its private hospitals.

Evolution Group chief executive Simon Keating said the business had eight long-term projects completed recently, started or starting soon.

At Smales Farm, the business will spend $52m on upgrading existing premises to move the Shore Surgery Specialist Hospital into nearly half of the Smales Farm building.

Shore Surgery is at 181 Shakespeare Rd nearby. Evolution plans to keep that open as well as moving into the new Smales Farm building.

Patient admission, six operating theatres, an area for short-stay beds, recovery, a sterilisation hub and facilities for clinicians, staff and patients are planned at Smales Farm.

Keating said work on the Smales Farm building was due to start soon. It is due to be finished by next year’s final quarter.

The hospital will be on levels two, three, four and five in one of the blocks separated by a glass atrium. One of the two connected blocks has 8500sq m of floor space. The hospital has leased 5000sq m of that, he said. Provision has been made for future expansion through additional inpatient capacity, consulting suites and complementary services such as radiology.

Keating said the area was a medical zone. North Shore Hospital is across the road. Shorecare urgent doctors are running 24/7 at Smales Farm with a pharmacy opposite them. Canopy Imaging and other specialist medical buildings are on Shakespeare Rd.

Evolution’s expansion

Evolution’s eight projects, some in properties owned by Vital Healthcare, are:

One: Wakefield Hospital, $185m upgrade completed last year. Owned by Vital Healthcare, operated by Evolution.

Two: Further $33m Wakefield expansion planned. Three new 60sq m digital operating theatres, consulting space, an expanded surgical lounge, changing rooms, new staff lounge are to be completed early next year. An endoscopy day surgery building is being added to the hospital.

Three: Grace Hospital, Tauranga, $92m, two projects. A new second level will be added above the existing building and a new west wing was finished in May.

Four: Anglesea Hospital, Hamilton: $75m for a new orthopaedic building. Works started last December and are due to be finished by the last quarter of next year.

Five: Shore Surgery Specialist Hospital, $52m. Leased 5000sq m in one of the two connected blocks joined by a glass atrium at the former ex-One NZ building, Smales Farm. Plans are to keep existing premises on Shakespeare Rd open.

Six: Regional hospitals, $45m. From 2024 to last year, new operating theatres were built at Hastings’ Royston Hospital, Tauranga’s Grace Hospital, Anglesea Hospital and Wellington’s Bowen Hospital.

Seven: Endoscopy Auckland, Epsom, $40m, completed in February this year. Building owned by Vital Healthcare.

Eight: Birthcare, Parnell, $4m, interior refurbishment done in January.

Evolution is owned by the Queensland Investment Corporation.

Other new Auckland hospitals, medical hubs

Many other businesses are building new private hospitals, operating theatres and medical specialist buildings. There are nine projects underway to upgrade private and public healthcare services.

Many public patients are treated at these places when the public system uses the private system to cope with demand.

Allevia Hospital Epsom got a $190 million expansion, finished last year;

Southern Cross North Harbour Hospital, Glenfield, is nearly doubling in size in work now underway, speculated to be $100m-plus;

$41m Kākāriki Hospital, Greenlane, opened two years ago with a new hospital on its top floor, specialists beneath;

New $90m Allevia Health Remuera is being built for many specialists, with operating theatres;

Southern Cross Brightside Hospital, Epsom, will soon be expanded;

$83m Ormiston Hospital, Flat Bush, was doubled in size in 2024;

Last year, Endoscopy Auckland, Epsom, added a new $32.2m, 1400sq m standalone endoscopy suite;

Franklin Day Stay Hospital, two operating theatres in Pukekohe and many specialist services;

Allevia GI Institute, Takapuna, expansion and a refit of an existing building.