{SA} 2.1 Billion In Construction for Three Seperate Projects Planned for SA

[sirkingwilliam]

Starting today with the ground breaking of the 724 million BAMC (soon to SAMMC-North) expansion. Though the University Hospital construction isn't part of BRAC, it's still a pretty sizable project. Keep in mind this is separate for the billions being spelt on other projects city wide.

courtesy of KSAT.com

BAMC projects expected to jolt economy

By Sig Christenson - Express-News

A base closure round that sent shivers down the spines of San Antonio leaders only three years ago is about to get bigger and better than ever, and the timing is right out of a Hollywood movie — the kind in which the cavalry rides over the hill just in the nick of time.

Ground will be broken today on a $724 million expansion of Brooke Army Medical Center, the most expensive project ordered yet in this area by the 2005 Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission.

More than just the San Antonio-area economy stands to benefit amid a deepening recession. BAMC’s transformation, among 78 BRAC-related projects in the city, also will revolutionize emergency medical care for troops and area residents.

“I think it’s going to be a better trauma care system,” Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff said, noting that an expansion of University Hospital is coming as well. “Between the two hospitals, up graded technology, more emergency rooms, it’s just a great leap forward, I think.”

BAMC and Wilford Hall Medical Center will get new names — San Antonio Military Medical Center North and South, respectively. They’ll be dramatically different facilities, each with specific capabilities and run by the Air Force, Army and Navy. That hasn’t happened since San Antonio became home to the nation’s first joint medical command in 1987.

BAMC will add nearly 760,000 square feet, renovate about 288,000 square feet and serve as one of two Level 1 trauma centers in the city as Wilford Hall evolves into an outpatient surgical center. The half-century-old Air Force hospital will be revamped at a cost of $50 million and shutter its top five floors or be replaced by a $441 million center. That matter could be settled this fall.

Wilford Hall no longer will serve as a Level 1 trauma center, but local leaders say BAMC’s expanded ER will bolster the city’s ability to treat victims of car accidents and violent crimes. Wolff, Mayor Phil Hardberger and others say more air ambulance flights will be made to cut transit time for trauma patients on the South and Southwest Sides.

The 2005 BRAC was dreaded because the 1995 closure round shuttered Kelly AFB, costing 10,000 jobs. But in making San Antonio home of joint enlisted medical training, the commission also delivered $2 billion in new construction and renovation of historic buildings, and 12,400 jobs to Fort Sam. Work on the post’s most complex project, the Pentagon-sized Medical Education & Training Campus, began in July. It will train 32,000 Air Force, Army and Navy medics here every year.

“If you look overall at what BRAC does in San Antonio, it combines the two medical centers here into one entity, which is great for both the Air Force and the Army’s medical capability,” said Wilford Hall’s commander, Maj. Gen. Tom Travis.

“If you look at the combination of medical education and training for the Air Force, Army and Navy as part of METC, that’s very good for the services because we train side by side,” he added. “But it’s really also positive for San Antonio because a lot of personnel flow into San Antonio for the METC.”

The city’s Economic Development Department reports that the military’s annual economic impact is $13.3 billion. Fort Sam says that BRAC will generate another $5.7 billion through 2011. Its ripple effects have “softened the effects of the recession” by ensuring a constant flow of money into the regional economy, Hardberger said, calling that cash “a very good cushioner” as industries such as home construction falter.

One expert pointed to the military’s impact on nonresidential building construction. This year, Doug McMurry said, bases here accounted for more than one-third of the area’s $3 billion in that economic sector.

Though commercial construction projects aren’t likely to help workers in the sagging residential construction industry because their skills aren’t easily adapted to big jobs, he remained optimistic about the area’s health in 2009.

“There are three very bright spots in San Antonio as it relates to building construction: military, education and health care,” said McMurry, executive vice president of the San Antonio chapter of the Associated General Contractors. “And while things remain uncertain in other parts of the country and while we understand there is some anxiety and pessimism elsewhere, we are very optimistic about a robust building program in San Antonio.”

BRAC’s impact isn’t isolated to the military. An $899 million expansion of two Bexar County hospitals is in the works. University Hospital, a county-run facility that handles 70,000 emergency cases a year and often diverts patients, will get a new trauma tower. It also will be upgraded, as will University Health Center Downtown.