Monday, Sept. 27, 2004 | 10:45 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi and Interior Secretary Gale Norton today announced that Nevada's new veterans medical center will be at Pecos Road and the Las Vegas Beltway in North Las Vegas.
The federal officials were flanked at a press conference this morning in Las Vegas by Nevada lawmakers, who plan in the next few weeks to push for swift passage of a bill in Congress that would transfer about 155 acres 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 Tuesday in the House. Nevada lawmakers will seek a vote on the legislation before Congress wraps up its yearly business, expected next month.
"Today is a great day for Southern Nevada's veterans and our community as a whole," Ensign said in prepared remarks. "A promise will be kept, a commitment will be met, and our veterans will no longer be without the vital health care services they deserve."
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 that closed last year after being plagued by structural problems.
The new medical center is expected to cost about $295 million and construction is expected to begin in summer 2006 and end in summer 2009, VA spokesman Phil Budahn said today. The complex is to include a 90-bed hospital and 120-bed nursing home, as well as an outpatient clinic, Budahn said.
The Interior Department said the land underneath the project is worth an additional $30 million, according to an announcement this morning.
The Interior Department will publish a proposed notice of intent to transfer the land in the Federal Register this week, the announcement said. The public will have 90 days to submit comments about the proposed transfer.
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 access to utilities were other factors, he said. Budahn downplayed criticism that the site is somewhat remote, noting it is on a major freeway. Public transportation to the site is likely as growth as development in the Las Vegas Valley continues to move toward the site, he said.
Interior Secretary Gale Norton said this morning that the transfer of the 155 acres is a significant milestone for 280,000 veterans in Nevada.
"This is a great event," Norton said. "We've been working in cooperation with the veterans' administration for this land transfer for a couple of months now, working to find the right piece of land and see if we can carry forward with this particular project."
Norton said the site would technically remain Bureau of Land Management property, but Veterans Affairs would have a 20-year lease with opportunities for extensions.
She said her latest visit to Nevada and the hospital announcement are not related to the presidential election, in which Nevada is considered a potentially critical swing state.
"I've been to Nevada a lot of times in the past four years," Norton said. "This is a big occurrence for us. Nationally it's one of the few times we have been to to have this kind of transfer from one agency to another.
"Much more often we have transfers from the military to wildlife refuges or something like that. This is the first one I am aware of with the veterans administration."
Norton said noted the unique relationship that the Interior Department and the BLM have with the people of Nevada.
"We recognize that we own more land in Nevada, or a higher percentage of land in Nevada, than anywhere else," she said. "We need to be good neighbors and make sure the land is used in a way that helps the people."
Sun reporter
Jace Radke contributed to this story.
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