SOURCE: www.va.gov
Washington, D.C. . . . The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has selected the construction contractor to build the Denver VA Medical Center (VMAC) replacement hospital. The new hospital will be on the same campus as the University of Colorado Hospital complex in Aurora, site of the former Fitzsimons Army Medical Center.
“This new hospital demonstrates our continued commitment to serve America’s Veterans with the finest facilities and health care models,” Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Eric K. Shinseki said. “It will belong to the Veterans that it serves, and will be dedicated to providing them with the latest in state-of-the-art Veteran-centric health care services. In the same way that we welcome Veterans of our military into VA, we now welcome this Veteran site of caring for our military into our mission.”
VA will increase the number of employees at the new hospital form the current 1,815 employees to more than 2,000. Of the 24 architecture, engineering and various supporting firms working on the new medical center, 17 are Colorado companies.
The contract provides pre-construction services to assist VA and the architect/engineer team in the design of a new 206-bed teritary care medical center with approximately 1,126 million square feet. This includes remodeling the building currently there. The project includes a new 120-bed inpatient bed-tower with a 30-bed spinal cord injury unit, plus a separate 30-bed nursing home community living center. The new hospital will be a state-of-the-art facility close to VA’s medical school affiliate, the University of Colorado’s hospital. This will ensure every patient receives an optimal complement of clinical services. Expanded telehealth, polytrauma and traumatic brain injury programs will be included.
Total project cost of the new VAMC is $800 million. Construction is scheduled to be completed in 2014.