“This is a great step in bringing the best health care to Central Coast service members and retired veterans,” said Farr. “By bringing the two departments together under one roof, we can seamlessly treat an individual throughout their career and into retirement. This design will hopefully become the model for future joint clinics throughout the country.”
Construction of the clinic is expected to begin in the spring of 2014 and will take approximately 18-24 months to complete. The federal government anticipates opening the clinic in the fall of 2016.
When completed, the three-story building, 104,000-square-foot facility will provide care for the approximately 80,000 active duty military and retired veterans living on California’s Central Coast. The new facility will provide primary care and specialty care including medical/surgical subspecialty clinics, mental health care, audiology, physical and occupation therapy, ancillary and diagnostic service. The clinic will replace the VA’s existing clinic, which is too small to serve the current population, and cannot be expanded.
“We are very excited to be moving forward toward a state-of-the-art clinic in Monterey with our DoD partner,” said VA Palo Alto Health Care System Director Lisa Freeman. “Our shared vision of providing patient-driven care in an integrated environment will soon be a reality.”
The Hamstra Group was previously awarded contracts to build VA outpatient clinics in Las Vegas and Phoenix.
Farr helped secure funds to build the joint clinic and recently introduced H.R. 272, a bill to name the facility after General William H. Gourley who was instrumental in the clinic’s development.