Photo | Grant Welker
A state Department of Transportation building on Belmont Street is the site of a planned new UMass Medical School building that will host a new Veterans Affairs clinic.
September 30, 2019
UMass Medical School to build new VA Clinic
Photo | Courtesy
A new Veterans Affairs clinic will be built in a 100,000-square-foot building to be built by UMass Medical School. With its new supplier agreement, Arch Therapeutics can now sell to facilities like this.
Photo | Courtesy
A rendering of a new VA outpatient clinic
Photo | Courtesy
A new Veterans Affairs clinic will be built in a 100,000-square-foot building to be built by UMass Medical School.
By Grant Welker
A 53,000-square-foot Veterans Affairs outpatient health clinic will be built in a new $70-million to $75-million building planned next to UMass Medical School in Worcester, officials announced Monday.
The new clinic will replace a smaller one on Lincoln Street in Worcester and will anchor two floors of a planned four-story, 100,000-square-foot building on Belmont Street. The building would rise on the site of what is today a regional office for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, with the state building a new office on Plantation Street.
The new clinic will have 65 exam, consultation and procedure rooms, and offer specialty care in areas including radiology, echo-cardiology, physical and occupational therapy. A clinical laboratory and pharmacy will be included, along with dedicated parking for patients and staff.
Site preparation for construction is expected to begin before the end of the year, with an anticipated completion in mid-2021.
UMass Medical School Chancellor Michael Collins said the medical school has long felt a sense of urgency to help in a partnership with the VA reduce wait times and improve access to care for veterans.
Photo | Grant Welker
A new Department of Transportation regional office is nearing completion off Plantation Street.
A current VA outpatient clinic at 605 Lincoln St. is smaller, with just under 30,000 square feet. In fiscal 2019, the facility served 9,000 veterans and a total of 36,000 appointments.
That facility will no longer be used by the VA, but a specialty clinic at 377 Plantation St. for podiatry, audiology and optometry services will remain. That facility opened in 2016 in a partnership between the medical school and the VA Central and Western Massachusetts Healthcare System.
The current Department of Transportation building site was transferred to UMass in exchange for a site off Plantation Street where the department's $35.5-million, 78,000-square-foot regional office is now nearing completion.
The new UMass Medical School building will be a significant addition to the campus that it shares with UMass Memorial Medical Center. At 100,000 square feet, it'll be roughly three-fifths the size of 120 Front St., the nine-story office building on Worcester Common.
The new building is the result of a years-long effort stemming from what Collins said was a reporting showing a lack of accessible care for veterans in Worcester. The medical school wanted to be able to help in a partnership with the VA to improve and expand services locally, he said. It fought for years first for university funding and then for approval from the VA.
"We were told no many times," Collins said.
For the chancellor, it was also personal, his father having been cared for in a VA clinic. The deal announced Monday was the culmination of efforts from Collins and colleagues at UMass and the VA.
“I haven’t seen him more enthusiastic over the last 13 years than he’s been about this project," UMass President Marty Meehan said of Collins.
U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, a Worcester Democrat, also spoke of the long process toward building the new facility, something he called critical for keeping veterans to have to travel to larger VA facilities in Boston or Northampton.
“I lost count of how many VA secretaries we’ve gone through since we started this idea," he said. “There were moments when I thought this thing was derailed.”
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