VA wasted millions on lavishly designed hospital

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.