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VA adds New Port Richey to clinic search area

 
The former Community Hospital is being touted by officials as a possible site for a VA medical clinic.
The former Community Hospital is being touted by officials as a possible site for a VA medical clinic.
Published Feb. 24, 2016

NEW PORT RICHEY — The largely vacant Community Hospital site is back in the running as a potential location for a planned $11 million Veterans Administration medical clinic that would consolidate health care for west Pasco's veterans while simultaneously bolstering the city's redevelopment efforts.

After initially excluding the city from its site search, the VA expanded its so-called delineation zone Monday afternoon to an area stretching from U.S. 19 to the Suncoast Parkway and from State Road 52 to the southern Pasco County line.

The decision came 12 days after city officials met with VA representatives to tout the attributes of New Port Richey and the U.S. 19 corridor as a possible home to a 154,000-square-foot clinic merging a patchwork of medical facilities serving some of Pasco County's 54,000 military veterans.

The Community Hospital site has been mostly vacant since HCA moved its hospital to Trinity and rebranded it as Trinity Medical Center in 2012. City officials pointed out that the site sits at four intersecting public bus routes, is elevated sufficiently to avoid storm surge, is in a stressed census tract that could make it eligible for federal tax credits, and is located amid a network of 22 social agencies providing services to veterans.

"I think it gives us the opportunity to have the gold standard in terms of veterans care," said Mario Iezzoni, the city's economic development director.

New Port Richey Deputy Mayor Bill Phillips focused on the potential economic benefits.

A VA clinic in New Port Richey "allows us to redevelop that area and create jobs and give our kids and our citizens up and down west Pasco and north Pinellas a place to have a job and to not have to drive south or east" for employment, Phillips said.

Being included in the search zone is no guarantee of a successful outcome. Phillips called it a good first step, and Iezzoni said he expected the city's strengths to make it competitive against other potential sites.

The delineation zone also includes Trinity and the now developing projects along State Road 54 like Starkey Ranch. The VA is seeking to lease a 154,000-square-foot building with 770 parking spaces for its new clinic.