VA chief to announce site for new medical complex

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, Sept. 23, 2004 | 9:48 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi is expected in Nevada next week to announce that a North Las Vegas site has been selected for a new veterans medical complex.

But an agency spokesman and aides to Nevada lawmakers today declined to confirm the exact location of the site.

Project details will be announced at a 10 a.m. Monday press conference at a department clinic at 2410 Fire Mesa St., near Smoke Ranch Road and Buffalo Drive in Las Vegas. Principi on Wednesday sent invitations to Nevada officials to attend the event.

The site is now owned by the federal Bureau of Land Management and Congress would have to transfer the land to the VA department.

Nevada lawmakers for several years have lobbied Principi for his support for a new medical center to serve Southern Nevada's rapidly growing veterans population.

State officials have long said a new facility is needed to replace the 150,000-square-foot Addeliar Guy Ambulatory Care Center at 1700 Vegas Drive, which closed last year after structural problems were reported.

Last year Congress approved $25 million to begin designing the new $250 million medical center, which would include outpatient services, an 81-bed inpatient hospital and a nursing home.

The VA operates 158 hospitals and about 860 outpatient clinics to serve the nation's 25 million veterans, about 242,000 in Nevada. About 60,000 were treated in VA facilities in Nevada last year.

The agency has been reluctant in recent years to construct big new hospitals, stressing a shift to outpatient clinic care. Principi has said his $62 billion budget, which includes $32 billion for benefits, leaves little room to renovate old buildings or build new ones.

OnPrincipi in May announced the results of a three-year study of the department's capital construction needs, including 150 new clinics but just two major new medical centers, in Orlando and Las Vegas.