Syracuse, N.Y. — The Syracuse VA Medical Center will break ground Friday on its long-awaited six-story Spinal Cord Injury/Disease Center.
The facility will serve veterans across Upstate New York who now travel to New York City or out of state to get spinal cord care.
“This will provide the kind of service that so many of our veterans coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq need now,” said VA spokesman Gordon Sclar.
The addition will be built on the west side of the VA Medical Center facing Interstate 81. The cost of the addition and related work, including an expansion of the VA parking garage, will exceed $90 million.
The new center is expected to create more than 70 jobs.
The addition will house a 30-bed inpatient unit and a comprehensive outpatient program, a therapeutic pool, seven operating rooms, an expanded dialysis unit, primary care services and other clinical areas.
A walkway will connect the parking garage to the new spinal cord center.
Clark Construction Group will build the addition. QPK Design is the architect.
The VA announced the project in 2004. It was delayed when planners determined the VA’s parking garage was not large enough to accommodate the expansion, said Margaret Daniels, the VA’s manager of diagnostics and therapeutic care.
The VA had to resubmit revised plans that included a parking garage expansion. The VA is adding two levels to its parking garage.
The entire project is expected to be done in spring, 2013.
By James T. Mulder / The Post-Standard
© 2009 syracuse.com. All rights reserved.
