VA's $800 Million Denver Medical Center Project Names Contractor

The Department of Veterans Affairs has awarded a $1.3 million contract to Colorado builders Kiewit-Turner to provide preconstruction services for the $800 Denver VA Medical Center replacement hospital.

The hospital, scheduled for completion in 2014, will be on the same campus as the University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora, site of the former Fitzsimons Army Medical Center.

Englewood, CO-based Kiewit-Turner will assist VA and the architect/engineer team in the design of a new 1.1 million square-foot, 206-bed tertiary care medical center. The project includes a new 120-bed inpatient bed-tower with a 30-bed spinal cord injury unit, and a 30-bed nursing home community living center.

The hospital will be close to VA's medical school affiliate, the University of Colorado's hospital. When completed in four years, the hospital will have expanded telehealth, polytrauma, and traumatic brain injury programs. Department of Defense medical services will have a separate clinic on the entire fourth floor of the south clinic building.

VA will increase the number of employees at the new hospital from the current 1,815 employees to more than 2,000. Of the 24 architecture, engineering and support firms working on the new medical center, 17 are based in Colorado.