Officials tasked with overseeing the Veterans Affairs Department’s hospital project in Aurora, Co., widely considered the biggest construction failure in the agency’s history, wasted millions of taxpayer dollars and years of effort by designing a lavish, sprawling medical complex, the VA’s watchdog said Wednesday.
The Aurora clinic’s costs have ballooned from its $800 million budget in 2009 to $1.7 billion and counting. The inspector general pointed to “gross mismanagement” and overly ambitious, ever-changing design plans as causes of the bungle in its highly-anticipated review of the project.
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VA officials insisited on including “custom glass, custom walls and wood, and custom floors,” among other extravagent designs that ratcheted up the cost of the Colorado facility.
The agency scrapped plans for a traditional hospital building in favor of blueprints that featured a complex cluster of narrow, individual buildings that would require more money and time to construct.
“[I]t could potentially cause greater challenges for veterans, their families, and other visitors to access various services across the campus compared with a compact, multi-storied building with elevators,” the inspector general wrote of the plan.
Meanwhile, veterans in Denver have been underserved by their current VA facility for nearly two decades. Construction of the new clinic will still not be completed until 2018 or later.
The VA has already faced criticism in recent weeks for spending millions of taxpayer dollars on art projects while forcing many veterans to wait weeks to see a doctor due to a professed lack of resources.
