President Joe Biden has signed legislation to replace the current Veteran Affairs Medical Center on Kirman Avenue in Reno.
Photo by Steve Ranson.
The authorization for a new veterans' hospital in Reno has taken a major step after President Joe Biden signed legislation approving construction.
The Veterans Affairs Major Medical Facility Authorization Act authorizes the development of a new $224 million Veterans Affairs Medical Center to serve veterans from a 20-county area of Nevada and California covering 110,000 square miles. The George E. Wahlen Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, handles patients in northeastern Nevada.
In 2023, a Reno spokesperson said the budget previously had authorized the VA to apply existing appropriated funds to the scoping process and to purchase land for a state-of-the-art medical facility.
President Joe Biden signed bipartisan legislation last month to authorize the construction of a new veterans’ hospital in Reno. Both Nevada Democratic senators Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto helped introduce an act to fund a new medical center.
“I pushed the Biden administration to construct a new VA hospital in Reno because veterans living all across Northern Nevada deserve to have access to world-class health care in a state-of-the-art facility,” Rosen said.
Several sites were initially explored for the new VA medical center, but the senator’s office said the northwest corner of the University of Nevada, Reno has been selected as the new site for construction. The 43-acre site is west of the university’s medical school and north of Mackay Stadium.
“Northern Nevada veterans are past-due for a new, state-of-the-art veterans’ hospital, and this funding will kickstart the construction and planning process,” Cortez Masto said. “This is an exciting first step, and I won’t stop until this project is completed and our brave men and women who have served our country have the facility they deserve.”
Before the recent decision, the federal government was also looking at modernizing the current site sandwiched between Kirman and Locust avenues.
“It’s going to cost so much and not even be able to maybe accept the kinds of new technology. So, we knew we needed a new one,” Rosen said of the need for a new facility.
Rosen’s office said the funding had already been allocated to upgrade the current VA hospital. “As they did their assessment, in order to upgrade it with the latest machines, X-ray machines, capabilities, operating rooms, technology, you name it, it actually would be more cost effective and so much better if we could build a new hospital,” Rosen said. “So, we took the funds that were allocated for upgrades, and these are the initial funding.”
The current Reno medical center operates with 64 hospital and 60 community living center beds. Other departments with beds include the emergency department, intensive care unit and the inpatient psychiatric unit.
The current facility opened May 21, 1939. The building consisted of a three-story, 17,905-square-foot hospital designed to accommodate 24 patients.
The Reno VA Medical Center owes its existence to a Greek immigrant, Ioannis Lougaris, who had a vision for the Reno area to have a veterans' hospital so patients didn’t have to travel 225 miles west to San Francisco. During the 1920s and ‘30s, a trip on a two-lane highway over the Sierra was an ordeal, especially during winter.
A practicing attorney, Lougaris approached a number of lawmakers who approved the funding for a veterans’ hospital more than a mile southeast of downtown Reno.
The VA said the satellite facilities that serve veterans in Fallon, Gardnerville and Susanville, Calif., will remain at their present locations. The Fallon’s Lahontan VA Clinic has been providing services to several thousand veterans. The 10,000 square-foot facility opened in January 2018 to serve veterans from six counties.
“I'm so excited because our veterans, they really sign on that dotted line with an oath to protect and defend the United States, our Constitution,” Rosen said. “They're willing to sacrifice their lives. So, it's our sacred obligation, I believe, to be sure that they're taken care of when they come home.”