Principi, Norton to to push bill on veterans’ hospital

Benjamin Grove

Monday, Sept. 27, 2004 | 9:38 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi and Interior Secretary Gale Norton today were expected in Las Vegas to announce that Nevada's new veterans medical center will be in North Las Vegas at Pecos Road and the Las Vegas Beltway.

The federal officials were expected to be flanked at a press conference by Nevada lawmakers. They plan in the next few weeks to push for a swift passage of a bill in Congress that would transfer about 155 acres of desert land from the Bureau of Land Management to the Veterans Affairs Department.

The bill drafted by Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., may be introduced today in the Senate and likely tomorrow in the House. Nevada lawmakers are seeking a vote on the legislation before Congress wraps up its yearly business, expected next month.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., today sent a letter to House Appropriations Committee leaders, urging them to attach the land-transfer legislation to the "first available legislative vehicle" moving through the panel.

Nevada officials have been working for several years with the Veterans Affairs Department to win approval for the project. They lobbied Principi, arguing that Nevada's rapidly growing veterans population desperately needed a new facility to replace the Addeliar Guy Ambulatory Care Center on Vegas Drive, plagued by structural problems, that closed last year.

The new medical center would cost about $295 million and take about five years to construct, VA spokesman Phil Budahn said today. The complex would include a 90-bed hospital and 120-bed nursing home, as well as an outpatient clinic, Budahn said.

Nevada officials and the VA department analyzed about 20 sites in metro Las Vegas, Budahn said. Getting the land for free from the BLM was an obvious advantage to the site selected, Budahn said.

"Cost was obviously a factor," he said.

The topography of the site and utilities access were other factors, he said. Budahn downplayed criticism that the site is now somewhat remote, noting it is on a planned major freeway. Public transportation to the site is likely.