Friday, June 27, 2003 | 11:53 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- The Veterans Affairs Department has shifted its strategy to replace the crumbling Addeliar D. Guy Ambulatory Care Clinic, according to newly drafted legislation in Congress.
Instead of paying to construct a gleaming new clinic, the agency will hire a developer to build one, then the VA will lease it.
The arrangement is familiar -- a similar arrangement is at the root of problems at the Guy clinic.
The VA routinely opts to lease because it's cheaper to allow a developer to pay the capital expense of constructing a new health-care clinic. The arrangement may be more expensive in the long run, but allows the cash-strapped federal agency to save money up front.
The department for months has quietly intended to pursue a lease deal in Southern Nevada, too, but Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., initially proposed in legislation that the VA construct its own new clinic. That legislation was redrafted Thursday in the House Veterans Affairs Committee, on which Berkley sits.
The new legislation calls for Congress to pay $6.5 million a year on a 20-year lease for a new 380,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art clinic. The lease would be awarded next April on a clinic that could open by May 2006.
"It didn't take long to grasp the reality of the situation," Berkley said.
"We jointly decided that this was the way to go because we could get it passed by the House of Representatives in a timely manner and we could build it faster using the lease-back agreement."
Berkley said the VA has pledged not to move into another unsound new building, and Berkley vowed to hold agency officials to the promise "if I have to go out to the site and inspect it myself."
The VA would choose a site, design the clinic and oversee construction, Berkley said, adding that the department has learned from its mistakes at Guy and other clinics nationwide.
"I have been assured by the VA that there are new safeguards in place," Berkley said. "The VA has been chastened by their experience."
A site for the new clinic has not been chosen, Berkley said. The VA had received four sealed bids, and agency officials told Berkley two of the sites are preferred. Berkley said she did not know what they were, but the final site could be announced "momentarily."
The VA moved into the new Guy clinic in 1997 and had 35,400 patients last year. Agency officials said the building has structural damage, although its owner, Moreland Corp., disputes that. The agency is nearly moved out of the clinic into 11 interim sites.
The cost of additional rent and personnel required with decentralizing operations is estimated at more than $6 million this year.
John Hempel, director of VA Southern Nevada Healthcare System, had no objection to leasing a new main clinic as long as the building is complies with code requirements and is properly managed.
"The approach to how it's built is not important. It could be VA built and owned or it could be built and leased," he said. "As long as it is built, that's what is important." Hempel said he was not involved in the selection of the clinic location. John Rago, finance officer of the American Legion Post 8, said he hoped the clinic would be in a central location such as downtown Las Vegas.
Rago said he thought such a location would best serve the homeless veteran population and be easily accessible to vets who belong to organizations downtown. "It would be better than what they have now," he said, adding he has not been to an interim clinic yet. "I have no desire to go."
Berkley had talked to top VA officials about locating the new clinic on a portion of the Las Vegas-owned 61 acres downtown, but that location has been ruled out.
Paul Dornberg, state commander of the U.S. Submarine Vets of WWII Silver Springs Chapter, said leasing the building is "ridiculous" because it would cost more in the long run. If the VA owned the building, the cost of construction would be a one-time bill, but leasing "bleeds you dry from then on," he said. Women Veterans of Nevada President Margaret Barnett added "I was hoping they (the VA) were going to build it and it would be theirs." She said the current situation of temporary clinics is "terrible."
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