By Tony Adams tadams@ledger-enquirer.com
By UnitedHealthcare
After years of waiting, the 30,000 military veterans in Columbus and the surrounding Chattahoochee Valley area are finally getting a new primary care and mental health clinic as part of a $62.4 million project, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs said Thursday.
Construction on the 55,000-square-foot outpatient clinic at 2357 Warm Springs Road is scheduled to begin in early 2019, with an estimated completion date in spring 2021.
That address is the 12-acre site of the former Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia office, which was closed after the insurance company relocated its Columbus operations center to Muscogee Technology Park on the northeast side of the city in late 2015. That construction project was valued at $76 million.
VA said that PH LLC, doing business as Molasky Group of Companies Inc., based in Las Vegas, Nev., has been awarded the $62.4 million contract to develop the Columbus outpatient clinic. Blue Cross turned the nearly six-decade-old Warm Springs Road property over to the company after moving into its new state-of-the-art office.
Just as Blue Cross is leasing its current 235,000-square-foot building from Molasky Group long term, Veterans Affairs will be doing so as well over 20 years with the Las Vegas development firm, the agency said.