Topping off celebration held for Veterans Hospital in Tulsa

Topping off celebration held for Veterans Hospital in Tulsa

Wednesday, August 28, 2024

Media Contact: Sara Plummer | Communications Coordinator | 918-561-1282 | [email protected]

Dignitaries, leaders and government officials came together Tuesday morning to celebrate the ceremonial topping off of the Veterans Hospital in Tulsa (VHiT). Speakers and guests at the ceremony included those from federal, state and local government, higher education, health care and philanthropy.

The new 319,000-square-foot veterans hospital is located in the former Kerr-Edmondson buildings at Houston Avenue and Seventh Street in downtown Tulsa just north of the OSU Medical Center in the OSU Academic Medical District.

The project is a collaboration between the federal government, state of Oklahoma, Tulsa County, city of Tulsa, private philanthropy and Oklahoma State University.

Courtney Knoblock, VHiT director and vice president of programs for the Anne & Henry Zarrow Foundation, said that the project started with a sense of duty to provide our veterans with the best possible health care.

"If you are here, you've contributed to the project, whether it's contributing to part of the $176.4 million construction budget, or the additional $19-plus million in supportive site work and parking, or in advancing legislation in support of this work, you have made a difference," Knoblock said.

In addition to Knoblock, other speakers at the event included OSU President Kayse Shrum; Dr. Johnny Stephens, president of OSU Center for Health Sciences; Del Beaver, second chief of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation; Grover Wind, acting secretary of Veterans Affairs for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation; Michael Brennan, executive director of construction and facilities management with the VA; and John Priest, president of Crossland Construction.

The topping off ceremony commemorated the project surpassing its midway point and served as a thank you celebration for the designers, architects, builders and construction crews who have been working on the project since 2021.

Priest said the crews and teams know the work they are doing on the hospital project is important.

"The fact that it's for our veterans, that's extremely important to us and the work we are putting in is giving back to our country and our veterans. We appreciate the opportunity," Priest said.

The $176.4 million renovation and construction project should be completed in 2025. Ownership will then transfer to the Department of Veterans Affairs, who will staff, furnish and outfit the hospital, which is expected to open in early 2026.

"This is a complex project to do and there's been a lot of challenges that have been overcome, and there's been a whole community of folks that have helped," Brennan said. "A topping off ceremony is a celebration of the hard work done by the trades and crafts people, the architects and engineers and all the construction suppliers. Everybody who is making this happen. The work that you're doing is amazing."

Once open, the VA hospital will have 58 beds, four operating suites and an emergency department. It will serve an estimated 66,000 patients a year, a 14% increase to the number of veterans currently served. It will also create about 50 new OSU Medicine residency spots.

The VHiT project is personal for Dr. Shrum.

"My father is a veteran who will benefit from this hospital," she said, but the project will have a positive impact beyond just veterans. "We know that doing the right thing by veterans will improve medical care for the entire community. New medical specialists, more medical residents and increased health care expertise for Oklahomans all across our state."

Right next door to the VA hospital, work has also begun on the Oklahoma Psychiatric Care Center and a parking garage that will serve both new hospitals in the OSU Academic Medical District.