WASHINGTON (March 19, 2009)—Nearly $1 billion in federal stimulus funds is committed to the two-phase construction of a new Fort Hood hospital, work on which is expected to begin next year.

The hospital, which Rep. John Carter, R-Round Rock, said will be built where Fort Hood Stadium now stands, will replace the Vietnam-era Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center that now serves more than 42,000 active duty troops and more than 145,000 family members and retirees within a 40-mile radius.

Carter says the benefits of the project will extend well beyond the boundaries of the post.

“There is no way to overestimate just how much this victory means for the long-term future of Fort Hood, and for the overall economy of Central Texas,” Carter said.

Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, who serves as chairman of the House Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee, said he authored $1.3 billion in the stimulus package for modernization of military hospitals.

Work on the first phase of the hospital, which includes a clinic building and an ancillary building that will house radiology, labs and other departments is scheduled to begin next year and should be completed by 2013 at a cost of $621 million.

Work on the second phase, which includes a five-story tower, is scheduled to begin in 2016 and should be completed by 2019 at a cost of $350 million.

“This is the kind of critical investment we must make to support our brave soldiers and veterans who have sacrificed so much for us, and this is the sort of progress that can happen if we bring Democrats and Republicans together to focus on solving the challenges we face as a nation,” President Barack Obama said in a statement issued Thursday.

The existing hospital was built in 1965 at a cost of $6 million.

It underwent a major $49.7 million expansion that started in 1979 and wasn’t completed until 1984.

Since early 2003, more than 2,200 soldiers who were wounded or fell ill in Iraq and Afghanistan have been treated at Darnall, which Fort Hood says is the largest number of any Army hospital in the U.S. and the third highest in the country behind only Walter Reed and Eisenhower Medical Centers.

The hospital now has more than 2,400 staff members.