(Denver Business Journal) — President Barack Obama Wednesday signed a bill authorizing $800 million for the long-planned U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Aurora.
The VA hospital, scheduled to open in 2013 on the sprawling Aurora medical campus on East Colfax Avenue, replace a 59-year-old facility in Denver that local officials have deemed outdated and inadequate to serve the region’s growing population of veterans.
The bill Obama signed — S. 1963, the “Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2009” — expands the $568.4 million previously authorized by Congress for the Aurora VA facility to the full estimated cost of $800 million.
Of the $800 million now authorized, $307.3 million is already budgeted, and the 2011 budget now before Congress includes another $450.7 million for the hospital, according to the office of U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Golden, whose district includes the hospital site.
The remaining $42 million is to be included in a future budget.
SOURCE: Denver Business Journal
