VA set to construct new health center in Cape, completion set for 2022

Cape Girardeau will be home to a new, $47.4 million, 43,000-square-foot federal Veterans Affairs (VA) health care center.

Officials at John J. Pershing VA Medical Center in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, announced plans for the new center Friday. A dedication ceremony is scheduled for 2 p.m. Sept. 28 at the new clinic location on Mount Auburn Road, immediately north of SoutheastHEALTH's cancer center.

The seven-acre site currently is home to a field of white crosses, reflecting an anti-abortion message.

The price tag includes design, construction and 20-year lease costs, according to Angela Smith, public affairs officer with the Poplar Bluff VA center.

Libby Johnson, center director, said in a news release the clinic will house eight primary care teams, lab and radiology, eye and audiology clinics, pharmacy and "several specialty care services and procedures."

Johnson Development LLC, no relation to Libby Johnson, will construct the health center.

The public will start seeing "on-the-ground progress very soon," Johnson said.

Completion is expected by 2022, she said.

"This clinic is another example of our national and agency commitment to serving veterans by providing more services closer to home," Johnson said.

"I hope all eligible veterans in the Cape Girardeau area will be sure to enroll," said Johnson, a Navy veteran from Perryville, Missouri.

The goal, she said, is to enroll 3,000 new veterans patients over the next two years leading up to the center opening.

Planning for the project dragged on for years.

U.S. Rep. Jason Smith, R-Salem, Missouri, no relation to Angela Smith, last year blamed government "red tape" for project delays.

"We were all excited when the Cape veterans facility was named for expansion; unfortunately that excitement has been met with frustration as the project has been slowed by unrealistic and inappropriate red tape over construction requirements ... the type of requirements which provided no benefit to the veterans but simply served to increase costs to taxpayers," he said.

The VA subsequently removed "many of the regulatory hurdles," the congressman said.

In 2018, the Southeast Missourian reported nearly four years after Congress approved initial funding for construction of a new veterans health care center in Cape Girardeau, final design work was slated to begin.

Angela Smith said Friday the planning process simply "took longer" than expected.

"I don't think I would call it red tape. There were a series of things that happened ... We got some bids that didn't meet the requirements," she said.

"There were a series of complications that came up that I suppose could happen with any project," she said.

The new health center would replace the VA's existing outpatient clinic in Cape Girardeau with a larger facility providing more services.

The current VA outpatient clinic encompasses about 8,400 square feet of space in a commercial structure near West Park Mall. Smith said last year the existing facility provides primary medical care and mental health services. The outpatient clinic has been in operation near West Park Mall since moving its operations out of the Missouri Veterans Home in Cape Girardeau in fall 2009.

Smith said in 2018 the Cape Girardeau clinic serves about 5,624 patients and, on average, about 1,900 monthly visits.

She said Friday that VA officials anticipate the new health center will serve "considerably more" veterans, including those from St. Louis and Southern Illinois.

"The bottom line is it is going to be great for veterans, and it is going to be great for Cape," she said.

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