New Tri-Cities’ VA clinic will be 10+ times larger, offer more services

The Department of Veterans Affairs has selected a site near Trios Health Southridge hospital in Kennewick for a new community clinic that could open in 2029 with more than 10 times the space of the current Tri-Cities VA clinic.

The clinic is expected to serve about 9,000 veterans who are currently enrolled for VA services in the Tri-Cities and Eastern Washington and Oregon area.

Now, the Veterans Administration has a primary care clinic in the Federal Building in Richland, with Tri-Cities veterans also driving to Walla Walla to access the more extensive service offered by the Jonathan M. Wainwright Memorial VA Medical Center there.

The current Richland clinic is only 9,800 square feet.

State Environmental Policy Act documents show the VA is planning a 130,000-square-foot building with up to 700 parking spaces on about 12 acres at 3811 Plaza Way. Ryan Companies US Inc. is the builder.

The site is south of the Trios hospital, and bounded by Highway 395 on the east, Ridgeline Drive on the south and Plaza Way to the west.

With the additional space in a new building, more specialties could be added for veterans’ care in the Tri-Cities.

In a 2025 interview, the VA said that could include radiology, optometry, dental, audiology, prosthetics, home-based primary care, laboratory and pharmacy services.

About 250 people could work at the clinic.

Construction is expected to start in October and be completed in late summer of 2028.

Both Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., worked to get money for the new clinic.

Newhouse has called the planned new clinic a “historic investment” that would revitalize veteran care in the greater Tri-Cities area.

Murray has noted that the clinic will not only be a “huge game changer,” allowing veterans to get more medical care closer to home, but will create jobs in the Tri-Cities as it is staffed.