Development

OMAHA, NEB. — McCarthy Building Cos. has completed construction of the Omaha VA Ambulatory Care Center, an $86 million, 157,000-square-foot outpatient facility for veterans. The property includes seven primary-care units, an outpatient surgery suite and a specialty medicine unit allowing 400 additional patients to visit the clinic each day, as well as a dedicated women’s health clinic area. The new facility, which is connected to the existing 12-story VA Medical Campus, will open to patients this month. This is the first center in the country to take advantage of the C.H.I.P.I.N. for Vets Act passed through Congress in 2016, according to McCarthy. Under the law, the VA is permitted to accept private donations to complete construction projects. The VA entered a public-private partnership with nonprofit group Veterans Ambulatory Center Development Corp. (VACDC) to save taxpayers roughly $30 million. The law also requires the builder to use innovative delivery techniques that fall outside federally prescribed specifications and methods. Such initiatives include subsurface utility mapping, virtual design and construction, and using a design-assist subcontracting approach instead of a hard-bid approach. McCarthy claims it completed the project four months ahead of schedule. “Breaking from the traditional design-bid-build delivery format allowed for creative solutions, more …