{"id":12661,"date":"2018-04-23T17:57:40","date_gmt":"2018-04-23T21:57:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=12661"},"modified":"2018-04-23T18:30:19","modified_gmt":"2018-04-23T22:30:19","slug":"plans-stall-for-80000-square-foot-veterans-clinic-in-brick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2018\/04\/plans-stall-for-80000-square-foot-veterans-clinic-in-brick\/","title":{"rendered":"Plans Stall for 80,000 Square Foot Veterans Clinic in Brick"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"James<\/a>

James J. Howard VA Outpatient Clinic, Brick, N.J. (Credit: VA)<\/p><\/div>\n

A plan to relocate the Veterans Administration outpatient clinic in Brick Township to a new location with ample parking have stalled, eliciting anger from Ocean County\u2019s congressional representative.<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Tom MacArthur said a decision issued Monday from the VA delaying the project was \u201cunacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s announcement about the Brick VA Clinic project is simply unacceptable,\u201d MacArthur said in a prepared statement. \u201cWhile the VA works out these contract issues, they must immediately address the parking issues our veterans are experiencing at the existing facility in Brick. Our veterans have sacrificed so much to defend our nation and they deserve better.\u201d<\/p>\n

The James J. Howard Outpatient Clinic off Route 70 has been plagued for years by overcrowding and an extreme lack of parking. The VA has outlined a proposal to relocate the facility to a much larger space with a bigger parking area.<\/p>\n

According to an interest solicitation requesy by the federal General Services Administration, the VA is looking to rent 81,000 square feet of space at a new location in either Brick, Toms River or Wall townships to use for a new outpatient clinic. According to the document, the space could be an existing building or sufficient land available where a new structure could be built. A requirement is that there be at least 480 parking spaces.<\/p>\n

If a building is leased, the term would be for a minimum of 20 years. The project\u2019s budget would range from $50 million to $100 million.<\/p>\n

Last month, MacArthur penned a letter to then-VA Secretary\u00a0David Shulkin asking for the project to be expedited.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the Brick Clinic stands today, it does not provide full services to our veterans and does not provide adequate parking which has caused many veterans to park far from the clinic,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThis is burdensome and difficult and our veterans deserve better.\u201d<\/p>\n

The third congressional district includes the largest population of veterans in New Jersey.<\/p>\n

There were no specifics provided as to the newly-anticipated date of the project\u2019s start. The letter-of-interest response deadline is May 18, according to GSA documentation.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A plan to relocate the Veterans Administration outpatient clinic in Brick Township to a new location with ample parking have stalled, eliciting anger from Ocean County\u2019s congressional representative. U.S. Rep. Tom MacArthur said a decision issued Monday from the VA delaying the project was \u201cunacceptable.\u201d \u201cToday\u2019s announcement about the Brick VA Clinic project is simply […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,3314,3315],"class_list":["post-12661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-va-clinic","tag-veterans-administration"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Brick_480x330.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-3id","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}