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The U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs Omaha Ambulatory Care Center became the first agency project to put private money toward construction while also using funds from available VA appropriations. The public-private partnership that ensued to deliver the project was also a first for the agency.

该设施已按预算完成，并提前四个月，现在为奥马哈40,000名先前服务不足的退伍军人提供关键的医疗保健服务。

In 2016, Congress appropriated $56 million for a new hospital in Omaha. But, due to cost overruns at other VA projects, that sum wasn’t nearly enough to deliver the hospital that had been designed to replace Omaha’s 1940s-era VA Medical Center.

Rather than shelve the project, a bipartisan group of Nebraska politicians, including then-U.S. Representative Brad Ashford (D), U.S. Rep Don Bacon (R) and Senator Deb Fischer (R), proposed a new law—Communities Helping Invest Through Property and Improvements Needed (CHIP IN) for Veterans Act of 2016—that allowed then-VA Secretary David Shulkin to authorize community groups to contribute to the cost of VA facilities. Previously, military-related agencies could only accept donations in the form of projects that were paid for and built entirely by private groups, such as the Center for the Intrepid at Brooke Army Medical Center, and then gifted to the federal government.

The features of the Omaha VA Ambulatory Care Center were designed to heal mind and body. Spaces for one-on-one counseling and outpatient medical care help vets. A whole-building natural lighting strategy that includes a colorful ribbon wall is meant to reflect the ribbons veterans have won for valor.
Photos courtesy of Leo A. Daly Inc. and McCarthy Building Cos Inc.
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The late Walter Scott Jr., former CEO of Kiewit, and the philanthropic group he co-founded, Heritage Services, quickly joined forces with Tetrad Property Group and created the Veterans Ambulatory Center Development Corp., which raised $30 million for the project. Designer Leo A Daly and construction manager McCarthy Building Cos. came on board the P3 soon after. The now $86-million budget made viable an alternative option: an Ambulatory Care Center, which would also free up space in an existing hospital next door. P3 delivery also fit into Shulkin’s mission to modernize the VA.

Sawall说，两名麦卡锡团队成员 - 高级副总裁和奥马哈商业领袖瑞安·萨维尔（Ryan Sawall）和项目经理克里斯·蒙哥马利（Kris Montgomery） - 使用传统的交付方法从事了新奥尔良的VA项目。“因此，当我们开始这个问题时，我们说，‘我们可以做得更好。我们可以更有效地做到这一点。’我们从那个咒语开始。”

Leo A Daly’s design called for a 157,000-sq-ft, three-story facility with seven primary care clinics on the first two floors, rectifying the haphazard placement of clinics over several floors in the old medical center. The first floor houses the VA’s first women’s clinic, plus a specialty care clinic shared by orthopedics, cardiology and other specialties. Radiology and a new outpatient surgery center occupy the second floor. A connector on the first floor provides direct access to the existing hospital, which still serves the inpatient and medical services of Omaha’s vets.

“What we were able to do is infuse the private sector’s ability—the speed-to-market of private construction—that allows you to get through the questioning and the back-and-forth and getting the blessing from the VA, at every phase throughout the design,” says Jonathan Fliege, director of design in Leo A Daly’s Omaha office. “That was all streamlined and honestly, that’s been the beauty of the P3 helping get this project done in a timely manner and at a budget that’s in line with a private-sector one.”

根据蒙哥马利和索尔尔的说法，麦卡锡使用了地下实用程序映射，采用了该项目的建筑信息模型为建筑提供了信息，并使用了设计助理分包法，而不是硬出价作为帮助团队加速计划的几种策略。

Using a 3D model also allowed seamless updates of design documents, avoiding potential schedule and cost impacts. McCarthy and Leo A Daly’s structural team simplified the steel erection process during design by specifying single 63-ft-long continuous columns, instead of more complicated strategies. With the erection work taking place in Omaha’s cold winter, Leo A Daly called for a bolted moment connection option that eliminated the need for welding yet preserved the building’s design.

The center links to an existing 12-story hospital for inpatient care. New landscaping between the buildings doubles as outdoor meeting, terrain exercise and counseling space.
Photo courtesy of Leo A. Daly Inc. and McCarthy Building Cos Inc.
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端庄的设计

该项目的设计目标是雄心勃勃的。两个大型窗帘墙功能可以实现整个自然照明策略，为退伍军人和满足他们需求的工人提供了健康的空间。“国旗墙”是门诊中心北部立面上的玻璃窗帘墙，上升了50英尺，跨越了235英尺，类似于美国的旗帜。窗帘墙系统采用12英寸深的MULULIONS，带有1/8英寸厚的挤压，以满足联邦爆炸负荷要求，并与基础钢超结构匹配。

第二个日光元素沿西部立面上的彩色“缎带墙”，类似于丝带士兵，水手，飞行员和海军陆战队在战斗中获得英勇。

Bolted connections helped McCarthy quickly erect the steel structure. Colored laminated glazing made the ribbon wall possible.
Photos courtesy McCarthy Building Cos. and Leo A Daly Inc.
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Fliege said that rather than opt for costly tinted glass, one of the regulations for VA projects actually helped the design team deliver the ribbon wall cost effectively.

“Glazing on a federal building needs to be laminated due to security parameters that originally came from the Oklahoma City bombing,” he says.

由于所有玻璃都需要是两个玻璃窗格的三明治，弗里格认为：“这些层压层，这是内在的层，它们也使它们成色。如果我们实际上实际使用了透明的玻璃，但是我们有彩色的层压板，而不是用透明的层压板涂有色玻璃？”

狮子座的戴利（Leo A）设计的奥马哈弗吉尼亚州门诊护理中心的设计使自然光通过项目的旗帜墙和缎带墙过滤到所有门诊治疗和咨询/会议空间中。园林绿化是咨询和运动空间的两倍。
Photos courtesy McCarthy Building Cos. and Leo A Daly Inc.
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The cost for colored laminates was only a pennies-on-the dollar increase over regular laminates and was much less expensive than tinted glass.

A limestone wall runs continuously along the first floor and opposite the main staircase of the facility and represents veterans’ duty and sacrifice.

“石灰石是一个想法meant to represent the experience of coming from Iowa and Nebraska and going to these conflicts,” Fliege says. “People bring back this experience with them. It’s still an agrarian place out here so tying it back to an earth metaphor was also important. Limestone is put down in layers over time so it shows that passage of time.”

即使计划和P3执行，一些因素也超出了团队的控制之外。该项目在2020年期间忍受了材料短缺。尽管在内布拉斯加州的整个大流行中，冬季和潮湿的春天仍在造成时间表破坏。

“We had 43 days of weather impacts that were not built into our schedule,” Sawall says. “We used a lot of lean principles, working within our team to try to move the critical path up.”

设计师通过在两层玻璃之间更改层压膜的颜色来增加一个具有成本效益的元素。
Photos courtesy McCarthy Building Cos. and Leo A Daly Inc.
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The project finished with costs within 1% of the original conceptual budget estimate despite missing those 43 days of construction due to weather.

On Sept. 30, a five-year extension of the CHIP IN for Vets Act was signed into law by President Biden. Plans to replicate the success of the Omaha VA Ambulatory Care Center are already underway.

萨维尔说：“俄克拉荷马州有一个计划。”“我们的设计合作伙伴是为此雇用的。他们很高兴能参加，我们被要求提供一些反馈，我们的客户也是传统。”

In August 2021, Walter Scott Jr., the Heritage Services co-founder and philanthropic driving force behind the project, died at age 90. Prior to his passing, the Air Force veteran had told Sawall and others that the Omaha VA project was a highlight of his career.