Public-private partnership made Ambulatory Care Center possible; 'more of a mission than a project,' says major donor
OMAHA, Neb. — Private philanthropists turned over the keys on a new clinic and outpatient care building to Veterans Affairs in Omaha Thursday.
The $86 million Ambulatory Care Center will open its doors within weeks.
It marks the end of years of work — and a fair bit of drama — to get Veterans in Nebraska and Western Iowa new health care facilities.
The aging hospital, built in the late 1940s, had been falling down a list of VA replacement priorities for years because of cost overruns on new hospital construction, especially in Denver.
It frustrated local philanthropists, who were interested in helping Veterans sooner rather than later, and in order for them to help, the law needed to change.
"Nobody thought we could do it," said former Congressman Brad Ashford, who championed the CHIP IN for Vets Act in the House of Representatives. "It's not worth having to come back to Omaha and tell Walter Scott the bill didn't pass."
It became law in 2016.
Scott, along with other individual donors and business foundations, contributed $30 million under a pilot program authorized by Congress to allow public-private partnerships to build a limited number of VA facilities.
Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Nebraska, championed the measure in the Senate.
"It's been a long time in getting done," Fischer said of the years of work behind the scenes to push forward the idea. "It should be a perfect model for how we can get these projects done in a more timely manner."
Heritage Services, the local donor group involved in many Omaha civic projects, leveraged private money with $56 million from the VA. It managed construction, which leaders tell KETV NewsWatch 7 was on time and on budget.
The new care center is a 160,000 square-foot building with three floors. There's an outpatient surgery suite with state-of-the-art operating rooms, treatment units with private patient rooms for doctor's office visits and a radiology suite.
It will serve more than 40,000 Veterans in Nebraska and Western Iowa seeking care each year, and will allow 400 additional outpatients to visit the facility each day, according to statistics tracked by McCarthy Building Companies, the contractor for the project.
And it's the first VA medical facility of its kind with a dedicated women's clinic tucked away on the first floor.
"We see more and more women who are joining our ranks every single day," said Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who's excited about the dedicated, private space for female Veterans. "They are serving across the spectrum, whether they are in logistics like I was in, or whether they are now serving in combat arms, which just a matter of five years ago was an entirely male space."
Veterans are happy to see the building finally ready to open, said Dick Harrington, a Vietnam War Veteran who serves as a greeter and host at the VA's Omaha medical campus.
"They're looking at this and saying, by God we got something here," he said. "I just kinda think about the fact that something's been done, and it's saying to the Veterans, we've got ya."
Harrington says the new space will free up square footage in the crowded hospital. He's also excited for hew housing set to open on the campus for families of Veterans undergoing care, along with expanded mental health resources.
The success of the program should come as no surprise, Ashford said in reflecting on the project.
But the billionaire who backed it from the beginning doesn't view it as a project at all.
"Knowing it was for Veterans made this more of a mission than a project," said Walter Scott Jr., in a letter commemorating the effort's completion.
He called the public-private approach "common sense."
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