The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has submitted a site plan application for a new, 62,000-square-foot community VA clinic and adjacent 382-space covered parking garage in Portland on the north side of West Commercial Street, west of the Casco Bay Bridge at the site of an abandoned rail spur.
An unidentified West End resident has distributed fliers and created a Change.org petition criticizing the project, but as of Wednesday afternoon no one else had signed the petition except for a reporter who left messages asking the petitioner to contact him.
According to a site plan application submitted to the city of Portland, the proposed project site is 8.4 acres and was chosen because it is unencumbered by existing buildings and close to major health care facilities, including Maine Medical Center and Northern Light Mercy Hospital’s Fore River Parkway campus. The two-story clinic would be highly visible and would “visually communicate the VA’s brand to the local public, establishing the VA as a recognized identity in the Portland community,” the application says.
Plans for the VA clinic, which would be roughly five times larger than the existing VA clinic at 144 Fore St., initially were announced in August 2018, but a specific location had not yet been identified. At the time, the VA said it hoped to have the new clinic operating by winter 2021.
Community VA clinics offer outpatient services away from the state’s main facility, the Togus VA Medical Center in Chelsea, near Augusta, about 60 miles from Portland. The new facility would offer a broad range of services including lab work, dental and eye care, mental health care and rehabilitation services. It also would offer other medical specialties, such as cardiology and oncology, a few days a month.
The proposed site for the VA clinic already is zoned appropriately for a medical facility, according to the site plan application. Portland spokeswoman Jessica Grondin said the project still would have to undergo a site plan review before the Planning Board, which would occur at a future meeting that would allow residents to offer public comment.
At least one area resident or group of residents appears to be in opposition to the project. On Sunday, an individual going by the name West End Watch created an online petition on Change.org criticizing the clinic’s proposed location. The web page cites a lack of public hearings and “critical shuttle services or support for our homeless veterans” as reasons for opposing the project.
“No public transportation service from anywhere to the new VA Hospital in Portland is a slap in the face to these American heroes,” it says, but the petition does not cite any evidence that the clinic wouldn’t offer a shuttle or other means of transportation for patients. The petition had a total of three online signatures as of 4 p.m. Wednesday, which included the petitioner and two signatures left by a reporter seeking an interview with the petitioner.
A resident going by the name West End Watch also has distributed fliers throughout the neighborhood criticizing the project.
According to the site plan application, a development team of JB Brown & Sons, Landry French Construction, Smith Group Architecture and Gorrill Palmer has been assembled to design and build the proposed clinic for the VA.
Putting a larger VA clinic somewhere in or around Portland has been under discussion for years, but funding was only approved in 2018. The VA has 11 community clinics in Maine to serve veterans closer to their homes, three of which operate on limited hours.
The estimated cost of the planned VA clinic in Portland has not yet been released.
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December 19, 2019 at 04:20AM
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VA submits site plan application for clinic on West Commercial Street in Portland - Press Herald
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