Beltway Blog — Fifteen months late, VA will finally start construction on new hospital

THE DENVER POST/ANDY CROSS

Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Jefferson County, jokes with VA Secretary Eric Shinseki at the groundbreaking of the VA hospital in 2009. After a 15-month delay, the construction should start in the next week

WASHINGTON — The Veterans Administration reached agreement with two Denver-based construction contractors Thursday to start construction on a new hospital after several members of the delegation angrily leaned on the White House.

VA Assistant Secretary Joan M. Mooney wrote a letter to the Colorado delegation Thursday saying agreement was reached late last night on the final contract with Kiewit/Turner.

The delay between August 2009, when VA Secretary Eric Shinseki came to Colorado and broke ground on the new hospital at Fitzsimons, and a deal finally getting inked last night pushed many veterans groups and Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Jefferson County, to an angry breaking point.

Perlmutter wrote a strongly worded letter Tuesday to the VA saying he was going to protest the would-be construction site, a mound of dirt, Nov. 21st with a shovel and veterans if an agreement wasn’t reached by then.

“It was frustrating that the DOD piece of this job was moving and with the VA portion, nothing was happening,” Perlmutter said. “It was frustrating to the vetearns. It was frustrating to me.”

Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat, also worked backchannels this week, calling White House senior adviser Pete Rouse last night to figure out what the hold up was.

“I’ll feel even better when the shovels hit the ground, but this is tremendous news for Colorado’s veterans who have been waiting far too long for a state-of-the-art Veterans Hospital to call their own,” Bennet said Thursday. “Our troops make up 1 percent of the nation’s population, but they shoulder 100 percent of the responsibility of fighting for our freedom. This hospital is one way we can help keep the promises we’ve made to support them as they return home.”

Sen. Mark Udall co-authored a letter Thursday to the Secretary urging agreement.

“I want to thank the VA for responding to the concerns of Colorado’s veterans who have waited so long for construction on the state-of-the-art VA Medical Center to begin,” Udall said, in a statement. “Now it’s time for the VA and Kiewit/Turner to sign the contract and start digging.”

Vietnam veteran Ralph Bozella, president United Veterans Committee of Colorado, said he has been “living for this moment.”

“When are they going to say we have a contract?” he said, before hearing the news of the agreement. “I’ve been personlly involved in this process since Feburary of 2001 in trying to get a hospital. Colorado veterans deserve better.”

Kiewit/Turner and the VA had apparently reached agreement on the excavation and foundation portion of the contract, but were unable to figure out a deal on the construction of the new hospital itself. The total project cost is $800 million, which has already been appropriated by Congress.

The new hospital, which will now probably open a year behind schedule in early 2015, will have 182 beds, including a spinal cord injury center and nursing home along with an inpatient hospital. Outpatient clinics will open sooner, perhaps as early as the end of next year, Perlmutter said.

Bozella, who has been a patient in the old VA facility on Colorado Boulevard in Denver, says a new facility is badly needed. He was admitted in July and shared a room with two other men. He said there was only one air-conditioning unit in the room and it was behind his bed.

“When they pulled my curtain for some privacy, all the air stayed in with me and the other guys were hot,” Bozella said. “It takes you back to the 1950s or something.”