South Huntington Ave Infill and Small Projects

jsr52 said:
it went from ugly to ugly.
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I don't know. The VA is struggling as an institution in general, and the fact that they put some money into making this building a little bit more palatable is at least a start. I can see how over the next, I don't know, 20 years, they might finish the job and rehab the whole complex. At least...I hope they do. Our veterans deserve better than what is there, and as ugly as the new job is, it is definitely better than what was there before.
 
Is that the one in JP? Im supposed to go to that one in a couple weeks and at least Ill know what it looks like now if thats it.
 
Yes, that is the JP VA.

It really is quite a dated place. They sorely need a new veterans hospital to be the crown of the Boston VA system.
 
If not pretty, at the very least, it's likely a thermal insulation upgrade from before. If I recall, they gut the facade completely and it would seem a lot of the slow work the past year or two has been its full reconstruction.

Agreed this building is evidence of the sad state of the VA system. Is there any precedent for VA working with a developer to build a mixed-use hospital or some sort of medical facility in partnership with another federal agency or non-profit?
 
BostonUrbEx said:
Yes, that is the JP VA.

It really is quite a dated place. They sorely need a new veterans hospital to be the crown of the Boston VA system.
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The West Roxbury location on VFW Pkwy. is considerably nicer and has tons of lots of land for expansion into a super-campus. Unfortunately it's so long a bus ride from Forest Hills that the net loss of accessibility in combining locations would be devastating to patrons. If the Orange Line ever went out there it'd be about the same distance from a probable W. Roxbury stop behind the Shaw's as the JP location is a walk from Heath. But that's not an eventuality the VA can in any way plan for today, and the agency is so troubled at the federal level they haven't got the wherewithal to search for better digs downtown. For at least another generation they're probably stuck trying to make do best they possibly can with that underwhelming S. Huntington facility.
 
Yet there was lots of time for corruption. Millions paid out in fraudulent bonus scams.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
The West Roxbury location on VFW Pkwy. is considerably nicer and has tons of lots of land for expansion into a super-campus. Unfortunately it's so long a bus ride from Forest Hills that the net loss of accessibility in combining locations would be devastating to patrons. If the Orange Line ever went out there it'd be about the same distance from a probable W. Roxbury stop behind the Shaw's as the JP location is a walk from Heath. But that's not an eventuality the VA can in any way plan for today, and the agency is so troubled at the federal level they haven't got the wherewithal to search for better digs downtown. For at least another generation they're probably stuck trying to make do best they possibly can with that underwhelming S. Huntington facility.
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The two locations dont offer equivalent services. JP is outpatient only. West Rox is the main place for inpatient (med/surg, not psych) care for the whole Eastern MA system. I don't have a chart on hand to show where MA veterans live, but seems perfectly reasonable to have the main hub right on 128 and not force everyone driving in from the entire eastern and central part of the state to schlep into JP. So I don't think it would be all that "devastating"... also, there are ride services other than the T that can help with intracity transport to the VA's.

In many states, patients have to drive for 5 + hours to get to the closest VA... We're doing pretty good in Mass., by comparison.
 
Also a large VA facility in Brockton on a huge parcel of land right off route 24
 
commuter guy said:
Also a large VA facility in Brockton on a huge parcel of land right off route 24
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CommuterGuy -- VA has a Very Big facility on the 62 Bus in Bedford as well

as the wikipedia article states
Bedford Veterans Affairs Medical Center, also known as the Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital, is a medical facility of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) at 200 Springs Road in Bedford, Massachusetts. Its campus once consisted of about 276 acres (112 ha) of land, which had by 2012 been reduced to 179 acres (72 ha). The hospital was opened in 1928 to treat neuropsychiatric patients, but now provides a wider array of medical services.......
In 2012, 177 acres of the remaining campus were listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places.
The district includes the main hospital buildings, as well as residential housing, utility and maintenance buildings, most of which were built no later than 1947, and some of which date to 1928, the earliest period of the facility's construction. It is an excellent example of an intact Period 2 neuropsychiatric VA hospital.
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Could they please re-clad the Sheraton North and South horrors?
 
Bedford and Brockton are both in the Boston VA system, although Bedford is a bit more independent. There's also little satellite locations and tiny clinics such as on Causeway St and up in Lowell, for example. I believe Lowell may be a part of the Bedford sub-system of the Boston system. It gets a little hazy.
 
Almost certainly, Massachusetts isn't high on VA's new facility list. VA is puttting its money where the veterans live.

http://www.va.gov/vetdata/veteran_population.asp

State / Total veteran population / Gulf War veterans
MA 380,000 / 86,000
CO 413,000 / 152,000
SC 417,000 / 148,000
WA 604,000 / 208,000

Once the all-volunteer armed services came into being, Massachusetts' enlistments decreased relative to many other states.
 
Bedford is independent of the Boston VA - it's a separate facility and has separate leadership. They are both under the same regional VISN (1) though. Bedford's focus is primarily mental health and nursing home care. Brockton offers similar services but has a spinal cord injury unit, while Bedford has an Alzheimer's unit.

Bear in mind that the VA encompasses 168 hospitals and over a thousand more outpatient centers - funding is limited in how it can be spread out, and the VA central office in DC determines who gets what projects based on a scoring matrix.
 
DigitalSciGuy said:
If not pretty, at the very least, it's likely a thermal insulation upgrade from before. If I recall, they gut the facade completely and it would seem a lot of the slow work the past year or two has been its full reconstruction.
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I think it's more significant than just facade reconstruction/insulation upgrades.

Before there were the small Window ACs sticking out all over. Unless everyone is sweating to death inside now, they must have totally re-done the HVAC systems in the main building.
 
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