It appears that UNC Hospitals has cleared its first major hurdle en route to building and operating a free-standing, 68-bed hospital in Hillsborough. The health and economic development benefits of the project are considerable.

On Monday, the Certificate of Need Section of the Division of Health Service Regulation at the Department of Health and Human Services issued a conditional approval of the application for the medical facility. UNC Hospitals did not receive all it wanted, but did get the lion's share of its desired plan.

The campus will have six shared operating rooms, two minor procedure rooms and a variety of medical and teaching programs, still under review.

To date, the project has seen little opposition. Alamance Regional Medical Center in Burlington most vigorously opposed aspects of the UNC expansion into Hillsborough. Both hospitals conceivably would compete for patients in the northern and western areas of Orange County and eastern Alamance County.

UNC has 35 days to appeal the decision if it wants to pursue the gastrointestinal endoscopy services, acquire the equipment or develop a vascular interventional radiography procedure room the state nixed.

There are many more state and local regulatory channels through which this project must travel before construction starts in late 2013 or early 2014. But as it stands, UNC officials have said it would create 1,893 jobs around the county, with 266 new hires at the hospital and others from spinoff opportunities. The building would cost about $118 million, and total state-approved expenditures for the project are $226,551,544.

That's very good news, indeed, as the economy continues to sputter amid what is expected to be a jobless recovery.