The Fredericksburg VA Health Care Center, one of the largest VA outpatient clinics in the country, is expected to open its doors to patients in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Construction of the four-story, 450,000-square-foot facility will begin in the first quarter of 2022 in Spotsylvania County on a 60-acre tract bounded by U.S. 1, Interstate 95 and Hood Drive. Work is expected to be completed by the fourth quarter of that year, according to U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs spokeswoman Glenda Powell. The entrance will be off U.S. 1 and there will be 2,600 parking spaces.
The department expects the outpatient clinic to have a 750-member staff and provide care for roughly 29,000 veterans annually, said VA spokesman Randal Noller. Services will include primary care; mental health; supporting services such as a pharmacy, lab and diagnostic imaging; and such specialty care services as podiatry, audiology, cardiology, physical medicine, rehabilitation, dentistry and ambulatory surgery.
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The new clinic will not have in-patient hospital beds, so qualified veterans who require care beyond its capabilities will be referred to other VA facilities or medical centers in the community.
“The Fredericksburg region was chosen for this clinic as it is one of the fastest-growing markets in the country,” Noller said. “This clinic will allow VA to improve access to care for veterans living in the Fredericksburg area, while expanding the types of services that these veterans can access from VA locally.”
The new outpatient clinic is one of two that will be built in Virginia, which was home to 670,273 veterans in 2018, according to the latest census figures available. The other facility will be built in South Hampton Roads. They are among 28 VA facilities whose leases Congress authorized funding for in 2017—the largest lease procurement the VA has ever undertaken.
Progress on the projects for both the Fredericksburg and Hampton areas stalled for several years. Sen. Mark Warner, D–Va., eventually became so frustrated by what he’s called “the glacial pace” of the two proposed veterans’ health care projects in Virginia that he fired off a letter to the heads of the Department of Veterans Affairs and the GSA in 2019 demanding an expedited timeline.
He also made multiple calls and sent a letter to the Office of Management and Budget pushing the agency to review and approve the leasing prospectus.
Warner said the hospitals are essential for veterans in Virginia who face long wait times due to insufficient capacity at existing VA medical facilities and a fast-growing veteran population.
The VA finally awarded Carnegie Management & Development the contract last September for the Spotsylvania clinic, which it will lease to the government for 20 years. This is the Ohio-based company’s eighth VA contract, which has a total value of nearly $377 million and is the largest project it has ever undertaken.
Carnegie purchased the property for the outpatient clinic from SH–Thompson L.P. and JDH LLC for $8.5 million. The land was owned by former Spotsylvania Supervisor and businessman Hugh Cosner, who died last year. Jamie A. Scully of Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer represented the purchaser. Adam Nelson and Virgil G. Nelson, also with Thalhimer, handled the sale negotiations on behalf of the seller.
The Fredericksburg VA Health Care Center will provide an economic boost to Spotsylvania and the region. Carnegie’s general contractor for the facility will use local materials and workers for the project, according to Rustom R. Khouri III, the company’s director of business development and preconstruction services.
Once it’s completed, the facility could bring in an estimated $662,000 per year in real estate tax revenue and an additional $300,000 in other new tax revenue tied to growth around the clinic, according to a report Spotsylvania’s Assistant County Administrator Bonnie Jewell gave to the Board of Supervisors last November.
“Once VA begins seeing patients in the clinic, full-time employees will have a direct impact on the local economy,” said Noller. “The veterans visiting this facility will also positively impact the local economy by being patrons of local retail in the area.”
Currently, there are two 10,000-square-foot VA community-based outpatient clinics in the Fredericksburg region, at 10401 Spotsylvania Ave. in the Lee’s Hill area and 130 Executive Center Parkway in Fredericksburg.
Patients at the Fredericksburg clinic will transition to a new 20,000-square-foot facility at 4830 Southpoint Drive in Spotsylvania in a few months. HTP Realty LLC, a Vakos Cos. affiliate, is renovating the space, which used to be the real estate developer’s headquarters.
Work is expected to be completed in May, although winter storms made it difficult to stay on schedule, said Chris Waller, Vakos senior vice president for leasing.
“Our construction-management personnel and contractors have been working diligently to keep as close to original schedule as possible,” he said.
All outpatient services will eventually move into the new facility, which will be called the Fredericksburg VA Health Care Center, and the two smaller clinics will close.