THE NEWS-ENTERPRISE, Aug 12, 2025
Just one week after Elizabethtown City Council voted unanimously to rezone property on Pear Orchard Road slated for a potential Veterans Administration Medical Clinic, the developer has announced the contract for the clinic has been granted.
The planned 62,428-square-foot facility, developed by Hamstra-Juliet JV out of Dallas, is scheduled to break ground in winter 2025 with an anticipated opening in the spring or summer 2027, the developer announced Monday.
“The award was posted on the government’s website on Friday,” said Scott Hazlett, project manager with Hamstra-Juliet JV. “We’re receiving the official letter from the VA (on Monday).”
The facility, designed by Leo A. Daly and constructed by J&S Construction, will feature modern architecture and be designed for efficient patient flow and advanced medical technology for several medical fields to include primary care, radiology, audiology, optometry, physical therapy, pharmacy, multi-specialty clinics, mental health services and laboratory services.
Work pursuing the project for the VA began in 2023, Hazlett said.
“The VA posted the project on their government website that there was a request for at least proposal being sought for a clinic in Elizabethtown,” Hazlett said. “It was one of the projects we had targeted that we wanted to go after. So, we have been working with the VA ourselves as well as other developers who held an interest in providing the service to the VA since 2023.”
As the process unfolded, Hazlett said the VA begins eliminating options from developers because of cost, location, design or other factors.
“So, as we got closer to the end here most recently, we felt pretty comfortable with our position in the competition and wanted to at least get our early rezoning work done and in place in anticipation of a potential award,” Hazlett said. “That was strictly based on our feeling on the pricing that we knew that we had turned in, and the quality of design that we had developed on the site that we had chosen. So we were pretty confident that the chances were pretty good, that we would land this one.”
Hazlett spoke from experience as the company has landed 14 other VA projects prior to this one.
The property, which local real estate agents Brandon Yarbrough and Jim Bramblett with Remax brokered, was targeted by the company because the company felt early on in the process the growth for Elizabethtown was targeted in the area, Hazlett said. All this was decided before the announcement and development of Publix and its shopping center, a car dealership and other developments nearby.
“We felt the VA always likes to be a part of where growth is happening and we felt that that portion of town was the best location in comparison to some of the other commercial sites that we did take a look at in the process,” Hazlett said. “We did obviously a look at the comprehensive plan that the city had put together and knowing it was zoned residential, but knowing the city has the foresight to recognize where additional commercial growth needs to occur, we took that into consideration before presenting anything to the VA and made it clear to the VA that this is where the city sees future growth, we agree with that position and we certainly want to be a part of it and be able to place the VA in the middle of that.”
In making way for the development, Elizabethtown City Council voted unanimously Aug. 7 to change the property from urban residential, or R-3, to regional commercial, or C-3.
The zone change was met with opposition last month from nearby residents concerned about traffic congestion, access to the property from Pear Orchard Road, setbacks from residences and other concerns.
Elizabethtown Mayor Jeff Gregory said despite the opposition, the council followed the comprehensive plan in their vote.
“This clinic was needed for a community with a large population of retired veterans and active-duty service members that deserve that care close to home,” Gregory said. “The comprehensive plan said that property should be C-3 as opposed to R-3. They read the comprehensive plan properly and made the correct decision … because that is what the plan called for.”
The property had been identified as commercial property when the comprehensive plan was developed and ratified in 2020 following the announcement of BlueOval SK in Glendale. At the time and during any development of comprehensive plans for the city, Gregory said the public was encouraged to participate in discussions surrounding the plan.
“At the time it had nothing to do with whether a VA clinic was coming or not,” Gregory said. “That was right call based on the comprehensive plan.”
While the zone map amendment was working its way through the process, Gregory said he discussed the residents’ concerns with representatives with Hamstra-Juliet JV.
“Because I didn’t have a vote, I could work with the developers a little bit,” Gregory said, saying he addressed what he saw on social media and through emails to his office. “… I shared with them the concerns, they already knew the concerns and hopefully, when we see this development plan that they’re going to generate and send to our planning commission, all those will be addressed.”
Hazlett said he is working with project civil engineer to make sure the items brought up at the planning commission meeting are taken into consideration “as best we can while still meeting the needs for the VA clinics to make sure it operates as functionally as possible.”
“It’s not unusual to have neighbors in areas around places where we put these clinics to have concerns,” Hazlett said. “It would have been ideal for us to be able to present the information we had provided to the VA at the … planning commission, but because it was premature to present information based on a contract that we were not yet awarded, we did not feel it appropriate to put that out into the public.”
In an Elizabethtown Planning Commission meeting last month, Chad Suitonu, representing Hamstra-Juliet JV, said the clinic is developed by his company and then leased to the Veterans Administration, creating a tax boon for the city.
With a typical lease being at least 20 years, Suitonu said a clinic this size could employee anywhere between 120 to 150 workers and bring an estimated $408,000 per year in property taxes to the city and Hardin County. More revenue will be created for the city through occupational taxes.
“The Veteran Affairs recognizes the fact that they’re focus needs to be on medical care and not changing light bulbs and plowing the snow in the wintertime,” Hazlett said. “So it is a tax entity as opposed to a government entity, which would pay no tax property tax for the building itself.”
But most of all, Hazlett said the clinic will provide a service to veterans close to home and be a “key addition to the community,” which has a large veteran population.
“The appreciation by the veterans for bringing a facility closer to their own front door is always appreciated,” Hazlett said, adding he was “extremely thrilled” to bring the project to Elizabethtown. “Each one of these proposals that we put together takes anywhere from 12 to 18 or in this case, almost 24 months, before the VA awards it to any one of the developers that proposed on it. To see all that hard work that we put into, picking the right site, putting together a quality design, working with a quality nationally recognized architect like Leo A Daly, developing the sites, making all the right moves and providing the VA with all the right information for them to see the benefit of placing the facility here and awarding the contract to us is always a very gratifying feeling.”
The only thing more gratifying, Hazlett said, is opening the facility to serve veterans who are seeing it for the first time.
“We’re excited to get started,” Hazlett said. “We’re looking forward to sitting down a meeting with the city to iron out our development plan so that we can get that portion started, which is our next big hurdle.”
