WRMC Saves Space for Future Veterans Home

While most of Washington Regional Medical Center’s employees will move into the new building on Northhills Boulevard, the North Street location in Fayetteville will continue to be useful. Hospital officials plan to lease the top two floors of the building to accommodate a 111-bed veterans nursing home.

Administrators have applied to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to finance 65 percent of the home, said Jim Miller, deputy director of the Arkansas Department of Veterans Affairs, and the state government would pay for the remaining 35 percent.

Discussion about building the home in Washington Regional’s future shell began at least two years ago, Miller said, and the Arkansas 83rd General Assembly authorized $6.5 million for remodeling the existing space to suit the nursing home.

“The veteran population in Northwest Arkansas is growing older and older,” Miller said. “We’re continuously having people interested in a home, but they won’t leave Northwest Arkansas.” The only other state veterans nursing home beds 61 people in Little Rock.

Because Washington Regional plans to continue using the rest of the building, it will be able to offer in-house support services such as prepared foods and housekeeping.

A lease agreement had not yet been reached, but the home would open at the earliest in three years, Miller said. Renovation would take 6-18 months.

Located across a lawn from the Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center, the proposed site for the nursing home offers an easy arrangement for transporting patients between the two structures.

To fill the remaining space, other affiliates of Washington Regional Medical System will transfer into the empty space left by the hospital’s move. Right now, the system leases about 50,000 SF of space around the city for services such as home health.

Clinical support, some laboratories, materials-management operations, a few executive offices and a wound care center will most likely inhabit the shell, said Steve Lampkin, president and CEO of the Fayetteville medical system.

Most of the new hospital’s food preparation will also continue at the old site.

According to county records, Washington Regional Medical System paid Washington County $625 in 1988 to lease the current location until 2013.