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The Veterans Affairs Central Iowa Health Care System campus is getting a face lift. Currently, six construction projects are in progress, making it the largest expansion the facility has ever experienced.

The largest of the six projects is the 140-bed community living center (CLC), which will include a palliative care unit, a rehabilitation unit, a unit for dementia, nursing home care, administrative offices and a rehabilitation clinic, said Barnett Devine, senior health systems specialist for VA Central Iowa Health Care System.

The three-story CLC will cost nearly $25 million to build, and will contain approximately 84,000 square feet.

The planning process for the project began in 2003 as part of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Capital Asset Realignment and Enhanced Services (CARES) initiative, which was a national review of all the square footage in the department’s health-care system.

All VA facilities in the nation were analyzed, and at least 15 of them have felt a major impact as a result of the initiative, Devine said. Des Moines was the only long-term-care project that was selected through CARES.

“What came out of (the CARES initiative) was the decision to build a new community living center in Des Moines,” Devine said, “and the specific design for this one began in 2006.”

Devine explained that the Des Moines area has the highest density of veteran population in the state and that the Central campus will eventually become the only location in Iowa that provides inpatient care.

He said that patients who use CLCs or nursing home treatment facilities generally have more complex medical needs, so they need to be close to a facility that provides more acute care, which will in turn force the VA to make changes at its Knoxville campus.

“At some point, we will close the Knoxville VA,” he said. “We will no longer be offering inpatient care there and in its place we are establishing a robust primary care and outpatient clinic in Knoxville.”

VA Central Iowa Health Care System will also transfer most of its Knoxville employees to Des Moines to staff the new facility.

“The plan and the goal is that the staff that currently provides services at Knoxville will transfer,” Devine said. “We are hoping that the skills that the Knoxville staff currently have are willing to bring those to Des Moines.”

Devine said that between 450 to 600 employees could make the move from Knoxville to Des Moines upon completion of the CLC, which is scheduled to open summer 2009.