Vacant buildings at the Waco Veterans Affairs Medical Center soon will be filled as the hospital begins a series of renovation projects this fall.

The hospital is moving some existing programs into the empty buildings as it spreads services out across the campus, chief hospital administrator Tom Balderach said. 

The main project will be to transform vacant Building 93 into the hospital’s Center for Excellence for Research on Returning War Veterans, which will focus on the effectiveness of mental health care for returning war veterans. 

Building 8 will be reconfigured for the hospital’s acute psychiatry program, a 13-day treatment program, and Building 9 will house the blind rehabilitation center and community living center beds. In addition, a new laundry facility will be constructed on Beverly Drive that will service the campus. 

Renovations at Building 15 were finished in April to create storage space for inactive claims and benefits files from the Veterans Affairs Regional Office. 

“That creates vacant space in the downtown regional office to create space for 100 to 150 new employees,” Balderach said. “With (the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan), we have so many new veterans coming back and processing new claims, and the demand is greater than the supply. So we’re getting new people to handle it.” 

Each of these five projects is being funded through $49 million granted to the hospital by Congress in 2007 for short-term, minor construction projects. 

In addition, the hospital is planning to overhaul Building 1 for a new food and retail canteen that serves visitors and patients, as well as a new outpatient service center. The hospital is applying for $10 million in funding for the project from the national VA headquarters and expects to begin construction in the fall of 2010, if approved.