VA pledges action on 1,200 vacant, underused buildings

Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin pledged on Tuesday that the department will demolish, hand off or properly assess more than 1,200 vacant or underused VA buildings within two years.

Speaking to reporters at a roundtable, Shulkin said he has already made a decision on 142 buildings and will either destroy them or hand them back to the General Services Administration, an independent agency that helps manage and support the basic functions of government.

“Those I can act immediately on, so I’m moving ahead on those,” he said.

{mosads}The VA aims to start disposing of 430 vacant or mostly vacant buildings within the next two years. The buildings are, on average, more than 60 years old and cost taxpayers more than $7 million per year to maintain, according to the department.

Of the 430, some are under historical preservation, including 97 from the Civil and Revolutionary wars.

“I need to work with other federal agencies and government organizations to make sure that we can get those properly addressed,” Shulkin said. “Either gift them or give them back to organizations that want to maintain them or readdress their status.”

Buildings that are being used partially will either be “filled up with other tenants so the cost shares can be appropriately addressed, or we want to get out of those buildings so they become vacant and then we can address them,” he added.

In a statement following the roundtable, Shulkin said the VA will begin the “disposal or reuse processes” on the first 142 buildings within the next six months.

The buildings eyed for closure are often older and part of larger medical campuses. The structures include warehouses, sheds, garages, greenhouses, dorms, gyms, chapels, research laboratories, libraries, dining halls, nursing homes and offices.

 The VA owns more than 6,200 buildings.

Shulkin in May testified to lawmakers that disposing of the buildings would work out to $25 million in annual savings and that the VA would work with Congress to identify buildings to shutter. He said the VA was considering using the Pentagon’s Base Realignment and Closure process as a model.

“We need to move rapidly to bring savings to taxpayers,” Shulkin said in the statement. “We will work through the legal requirements and regulations for disposal and reuse and we will do it as swiftly as possible.”

The VA will review another 784 underutilized buildings to find any efficiencies that can be reinvested back into veterans’ services.