Louisville VAMC 002

 

There are days where Karen C. Hinkebein will drive up and down Brownsboro Road three times to visit her mother, who lives near Zachary Taylor National Cemetery.

Traffic is already a daily issue near the Interstate 264 exits, she said Wednesday. But building a hospital in the open field near the ramps, she added, would make a bad situation worse.

"From 3:30 on, until about 6 or 6:30 – and in the mornings too – traffic is a mess there," Hinkebein said. "And I cannot imagine adding the traffic that comes with having a hospital there."

It's likely she won't have to use her imagination in a few years. A lawsuit that had pushed for officials to stop plans to build a new U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in eastern Louisville was dismissed Tuesday by a federal judge, clearing the way for its construction to begin.

The city of Crossgate in Jefferson County sued the VA department in 2018 after plans to build the medical center on Brownsboro Road near the Watterson Expressway ramps were released, citing environmental concerns and increased traffic that would come to the already busy corridor. That lawsuit has been dismissed with prejudice by U.S. District Court Judge Claria Horn Boom.

Kirk Hilbrecht, Crossgate's mayor and a Veteran, said in a statement that the plaintiffs are reviewing the ruling and are considering appeal options.

The new hospital would replace the 68-year-old Robley Rex VA Medical Center that stands on Zorn Avenue. Stephen Black, Robley Rex's director, said in a statement that hospital officials are excited to get to work with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on construction.

"I'm excited that we will soon have a new state-of-the-art health care campus to serve Veterans residing in our 35-county service area,” Black said. "We are delighted about the Brownsboro Road location and the enhanced care and services our Veterans will receive there."

The construction contract on the project should be awarded in July, according to Robley Rex spokesperson Judy Williams, with the development expected to be completed in 2025.

The property was sold by local investor Jonathan Blue to the federal government in 2012 for $12.9 million.

Hilbrecht said Judge Boom's ruling disregarded the lawsuit's claim that the property was bought with the intent of building the hospital before a required environmental review of the site could take place.

"By observing the other recent VA hospital debacles and over-budget travesties, it’s obvious that when these US Government statutes are NOT followed, there will be drastic and lasting negative impacts on our environment, disruption to the neighborhoods and ultimately a failure to properly serve the Veterans it seeks to aid," Hilbrecht said.

Officials and residents of Crossgate, a small incorporated city with about 100 homes, aren't the only ones who had voiced concerns about building a hospital at the vacant 35-acre Brownsboro Road site, near Ballard High School and the Holiday Manor shopping center.

Eric Gunderson, president of Grow Smart Louisville, a group that works to fight urban sprawl and encourage appropriate developments, said few Veterans live near the site of the proposed hospital, and those who are sent to the medical center will have to fight that infamous Brownsboro Road traffic.

"While I do feel bad for those (nearby) neighborhoods, I feel really bad for our Veterans," Gunderson said. "Generally speaking, the ones who use that facility don't live in that end of town. They're going to have to travel further. They're going to have to deal with that congestion just for regular appointments – God help them in an emergency."

Hilbrecht questioned whether building a new VA hospital is a financially smart move and said Veterans should be allowed "to go to the doctors and specialists they prefer, not a designated building or specific hospital."

"Crossgate agrees that the VA should guarantee access to quality health care to its national treasures: the men and women who served our country," he said. "The VA can make good on this guarantee by giving Veterans the same access to quality healthcare enjoyed by our U.S. senators and representatives via a Veteran Health Care plan and access card. If it’s good enough for our U.S. elected officials, shouldn’t it be good enough for our Veterans?"

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer had been among the many who urged the VA to consider alternate locations over the years. The city of Louisville was not a plaintiff in Crossgate's lawsuit, and Fischer in a Wednesday statement told The Courier Journal that he supports efforts to build the new hospital.

“This is good news for our Veterans and our city because it enhances medical services and creates construction jobs," Fischer said. "It is well past time that our Veterans have the state-of-the art facility they deserve.”

Still, while the VA in 2017 acknowledged there could be "potential adverse impacts associated with the Brownsboro site," a report by the department said similar issues would exist in other proposals and the benefits of building at that location "outweigh its proximity to adjacent residences."

In her order Tuesday dismissing Crossgate's lawsuit, Boom said federal officials had taken environmental concerns into account during the decision process and that the new facility would not significantly impact any low-income or minority communities. The lawsuit's "vague reference" to traffic concerns were not sufficient to require an additional analysis by the VA, her order added.

At the urging of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, who has supported efforts to build the hospital without offering an opinion on where it should stand, former President Donald Trump's 2020 budget included more than $400 million for the project. The facility is expected to include more than 100 beds and a parking center that can fit more than 2,500 cars.

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