VA sets sights on new clinic

Dan Kulin

Thursday, Jan. 30, 2003 | 11:07 a.m.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi wants to build a new veterans clinic on the former Union Pacific Railroad yards in downtown Las Vegas, but he will wait for the results of a new environmental study of the city-owned 61 acres before proceeding, a department spokesman said Wednesday.

The new downtown clinic would be about 60 percent larger than the current Addeliar D. Guy III Ambulatory Care Center, which serves about 35,000 veterans a year, according to a spokesman for Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.

The VA is also planning to open four new community clinics in Southern Nevada and to expand the number of beds available for veterans at the Mike O'Callaghan Federal Hospital, according to a joint statement from Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev.

Patients should start receiving care at the new facilities in October 2005, the statement said.

The VA already operates community clinics in Pahrump and Henderson. A spokesman for Ensign said he did not know where the new community clinics would be located. The downtown clinic would cost $85.6 million, and other administrative buildings and a parking lot would cost another $11.7 million, according to a VA report.

They would replace the Guy clinic at Vegas Drive and Martin L. King Boulevard, which will close by the end of May. VA officials have said that building has structural problems and they plan to move VA services to 11 temporary locations while the new clinics are being built.

An attorney for the Guy building's owner, the Moreland Corp., has said the company repaired it and the structure is safe and complies with city codes. The attorney, Robert Symons, has also said the company will sue the government if it moves.

The VA report, which recommended a new clinic go downtown, also proposed increasing the number of beds available for veterans at the O'Callaghan hospital at Nellis Air Force Base. The report recommended making 84 beds available for veterans, including 14 beds for psychiatric patients, according to the report. Currently 52 beds at the federal hospital are available for veterans, John E. Hempel, chief executive officer of the VA Southern Nevada Healthcare System, said.

Berkley had lobbied for a full-service veterans hospital at the downtown site. But if the VA constructs the 264,000-square-foot "super clinic" and expands the O'Callaghan hospital, there likely would not be a need for a hospital on the downtown site in the near future, Berkley aides said.

The VA report did not estimate how much the city-owned land downtown would cost. But the report makes a reference to capitalizing on "an offer of donated land from the city of Las Vegas."

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said he has had no discussions with VA officials about giving or selling them a part of the 61 acres.

Goodman said one possible scenario would be that the city sell the land to a private developer who would then lease the land to the VA.

Berkley, who has been negotiating with Principi for months, prefers the downtown site for the clinic, which she said would need about 20 acres.

"It's the right size, the right location, it's easily accessible from highways and interstates and surface streets," Berkley said.

World War II Army veteran Floyd Wright agreed the downtown location would be a "good deal" because it would be easier to get to than the Guy clinic he was visiting Wednesday for a checkup.

Budahn said a downtown site and the community-based clinics also fall in line with the department's efforts to move many services out of hospitals and into clinics.

"The secretary has been clear for a while that his preference is for a downtown facility that would be augmented by other clinics in the surrounding area," Budahn said. But the site still must get environmental clearance from a VA study, which will take at least 60 days.

Goodman and a spokesman for Berkley said they are confident the site on the 61 acres will pass VA scrutiny.

The most contaminated parts of the property were cleaned up in the mid-1990s, when Union Pacific removed and cleaned contaminated soil by burning it, Lesa Coder, director of the city Office of Business Development, said.

Since then the city has overseen four environmental studies of the property it acquired in 2000, she said.

The property was tested down to 100 feet. In a few spots contaminants were found as deep as 9 1/2 feet, but no contaminants were found any deeper, she said.

The top 2 feet of soil on the 61 acres is "clean," Coder said. But some contaminants exist in certain areas deeper than that, such as in some parts of the southern third of the property. The contaminants are the remnants of petroleum byproducts, which came from spilled diesel fuel and cleaning materials used when the railroad yard was in operation, she said.

No additional remediation would have to be done if a parking lot were placed over a contaminated area. But some soil would have to be removed where a building's footings or foundation would go, Coder said.

"But in order to put in a foundation or footing you would have to excavate anyway," she said.

Exactly how much soil would have to be removed would depend greatly on the location of a building, she said.

"Through prudent construction methods the site is perfectly developable," Coder said, adding that land in similar condition is routinely built on.

Coder said she expects any future environmental study of the property to "come to the same conclusions we have come to. ... It's safe and buildable."

Budahn said the VA will oversee its own environmental study of the property to make sure the department knows what it is getting into.

"It's just due diligence," he said.

Berkley spokesman Michael O'Donovan said the congresswoman planned to deliver a city environmental report on the property to Principi.

In November Berkley and Goodman met with Principi on the city-owned property to try to persuade the secretary to put a new veterans medical facility there. They and many veterans have said the downtown location would be ideal because of its easy access from nearby Interstate 15 and U.S. 95.

Goodman said he is hopeful the VA's plans will fit in with his grand plans for the 61 acres.

"It's going to have to fit in with my plans for an academic medical center," Goodman said.