A year and a half ago, U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann said progress on a new site for the Chattanooga Veterans Clinic was "lethargic and slow," but the rezoning approval of a potential site for the clinic Monday may speed things up.
The Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission voted to rezone a 27-acre site at the corner of Shallowford and Standifer Gap roads from residential and R-4 to R-4 special zone.
The site would potentially afford space for the VA clinic, currently located at Eastgate Town Center, as well as 100,000 square feet for medical office space.
The House passed legislation to authorize funding for a new lease and expanded Veterans Affairs clinic in Chattanooga 420-5 on July 30, 2014. It already had been approved by the House and Senate Conference Committee.
"This is a much needed expansion in Hamilton County and yet another victory for veterans in East Tennessee," Fleischmann said in 2014. "With this new lease, veterans will not only experience more timely care, but in addition, they will receive more specialized services in the areas of dental, laboratory, work therapy, geriatrics and eye care. The men and women who bravely protected our country must be taken care of when they return from the battlefields, and I am confident the expanded clinic will greatly advance medical care for veterans throughout the 3rd District."
In early 2015, he told WTVC the clinic also could cover podiatry and mental health issues.
Although the site would move the clinic farther east in the county, it still would be easily accessible from the Shallowford Road exits on Interstate 75 or Highway 153.
In 2015, it was expected a clinic might not be completed until 2020.
On Monday, Russell Elliott of Pointe Commercial Real Estate, who represented the land owners, said it still could be three or four years before the VA clinic is built, approximating the timeline cited last year.
The new 90,000-square-foot clinic would more than double the size of current facilities at Eastgate, shortening wait times and offering more specialized care.
The clinic, which opened in 1985, provides primary care for about 14,000 patients in Tennessee, North Georgia and Northeast Alabama and various services for around 25,000 veterans.
The rezoning still must be approved by the City Council, and the clinic building process would be subject to federal government approval.
Although we hate to see anything for our country's veterans dragged out, we appreciate the due diligence that must be done to secure a convenient, well thought out and well built facility. The keepers of our freedom deserve no less.