New VA clinic set to open in Visalia, will serve over 14,000 veterans

VISALIA, Calif. (KFSN) -- A new VA clinic is preparing to open its doors in Tulare County this week.

On Friday, a ribbon-cutting will mark the opening of the state-of-the-art building, which has been nearly a decade in the making.

The 25,000-square-foot VA clinic sits inside a newly renovated building on the corner of North Santa Fe Street and East Murray Avenue near Downtown Visalia.

It will create over 60 new jobs and serve over 14,000 veterans who previously would have to travel to Fresno for services.

Those services will now be offered at the new clinic in Visalia.

"Specialty care services such as optometry, podiatry, physical medicine and rehab, so we have a full physical medical suite, battlefield acupuncture, massage therapy, chiropractic," explained Jesse Conyers, a Chief Planner with the Department of Veterans Affairs, who has been working behind the scenes since 2016 to make this clinic a reality.

He knows the struggles of those who have served. He's a veteran, too.

The building was gutted and remodeled to include new features like an interactive directory, a prosthetics suite, a mental health suite, X-ray machines and much more.

The $12.5 million clinic is nearly three times the size of the VA's Tulare location, which will close this week.

"When we look at 26,000 veterans in this area, that's huge, and our veteran population has aged. We have new OEF & OIF (Afghanistan and Iraq) veterans coming into the fold, we need to create access to care that makes sense for the population," explained Jesse.

Local veterans are already looking forward to the new resources.

Among them are Oscar DeLeon and his brother, who served as the Grand Marshals of last year's Farmersville veterans parade.

The Army vets say they will save hours every year by not having to travel to Fresno for services.

"It still takes time and energy to get all the way to Fresno and then get back, so the convenience of having it here is wonderful," said Oscar.

All veterans and their families are invited to tour the building this Friday.

The clinic will open in phases and should be fully operating in the next year and a half.

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