[Johnny Ryall]

Memphis VA Medical Center campus looks to add 2 parking garages
By Toby Sells

The Memphis Veterans Affairs Medical Center campus may get two new parking garages and office and retail space in what would be a multimillion-dollar deal. The project would bring a multistory parking garage to the northeast corner of the hospital on a parcel of land that fronts Poplar. Another, larger garage would be built on one of the roughly 4-acre surface lots on the hospital's west side, between Jefferson and Poplar. There are no fine details on the size, design or capacity of the buildings yet, as the VA will work with private developers to create the spaces.

The new garages are expected to alleviate parking problems around the government-run hospital for those who have served in the armed forces. VA officials said the campus lacks more than 500 parking spaces to handle its current workload and overall operations. "Our projections show that that number will continue to grow over the years and we'll be down more than 800 (spaces) in just a few years," said Alan Hackman, the VA's portfolio manager in the Office of Asset and Enterprise Management. "There has been a big shift from inpatient to outpatient services in the past 20 years, so there's more daily appointments (and more cars)."

The larger garage could be built to house office and retail space, Hackman said, to simply make the project more attractive to a potential developer. VA officials hope to lease the land and buildings to a public or private developer for 75 years in a process called enhanced-use leasing. The land and buildings would revert back to the VA at the end of the lease. This kind of lease strategy comes as VA facilities fight for limited budget dollars for building and maintenance, Hackman said. "There are only so many dollars available and the VA has 153 facilities not counting our cemeteries and office buildings, which are all competing for dollars," Hackman said. VA officials announced the project in a public hearing Wednesday night. They'll invite potential developers to the site in June, get their proposals and will likely select a developer by December.