The Galesburg VA clinic has found a new home at the former Sandburg Mall.
The Lane A. Evans VA Community Based Outpatient Clinic, currently located at 310 Home Blvd., will move to the former Bergner’s store in Sandburg Mall by the late fall of 2023.
The move will allow the Galesburg VA clinic to nearly double in size and provide additional services.
The new Galesburg VA clinic will lease nearly 19,000 square feet of the Bergner’s building, the same amount of space that was recently utilized by the the Knox County Health Department for its Unified Command Vaccination Center.
According to an online listing by Dahl Real Estate of Galesburg, the former Bergner’s building is 86,000 square feet in size. Remaining space not used by the VA clinic is expected to be leased to additional tenants.
Jamie Johnson, public affairs officer for the Iowa City VA, said the new space in Galesburg will allow the VA to add exam rooms and a support area to reduce patient wait times. The clinic will retain radiology services and also expand physical therapy and audiology services. The new clinic will have a full physical therapy gym and a full audiology booth on site.
Additionally, new technology will accommodate expanded mental health, Telehealth and home based primary care services. Johnson also said there is a potential to expand specialty care services in the future.
Construction is expected to start in the spring.
The existing 10-year lease for the Lane A. Evans Clinic on Home Boulevard — built specifically for the VA in 2013 — expires in July 2023. Johnson said they plan to extend the lease until they are ready to move to the Bergner’s site in late fall of 2023.
“We could have re-leased, but the VA chose to re-compete instead of just extend, to see what’s out there,” Johnson said. “It didn’t make sense to renew the lease when we had plans to nearly double the space in Galesburg.”
Several developers bid to secure the VA clinic lease and offered numerous potential sites around Galesburg. One of those proposed sites was city of Galesburg-owned land located on West Carl Sandburg Drive, in a vacant lot west of the Sherwin Paint store at 2246 Promenade Ct.
Johnson said, “The site (on West Carl Sandburg Drive) mentioned in previous media reports was just one of several sites we considered.”
The move of the Galesburg clinic to a vacant former retail space follows a recent trend for the Iowa City VA.
A statement provided by the VA said, “The Iowa City VA has had tremendous success the past few years with build-outs of vacant commercial spaces that are sitting unused, and we look forward to doing the same in Galesburg. Similar projects have recently opened in Ottumwa, Iowa, and Sterling, and we’re currently in progress in Coralville, Iowa.”
