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Newport will lure VA regional center

Two years ago, Newport put in a bid to be a city where the new Veterans’ Home would be located.  Jacksonville landed the 22 million dollar facility.  The 20 acres of land the home would have been placed could be available again to try to persuade the Department of Veteran’s Affairs to place a regional center in Newport.  A report by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette stated that five regional centers in the state are being planned.  Newport Mayor David Stewart says the city will apply for a VA regional center.

“Anytime that you have something that enormous that would employ a lot of people, we definitely will apply because we need it in Newport,” said Stewart.

Not much information about the centers has been released, but Stewart says an initial proposal is being drafted.   The proposal would be very similar to the proposal that was offered before.

“They have not said a lot about the number of employees or what we would need to do to be part of that, but the Newport Economic Development Commission is looking at what we need to do to score that building.”

As part of the 2013 proposal to lure the Veteran’s Home to Newport, over 20 acres of land was donated by Harris Hospital.  Stewart says that land would be available again for a VA regional center:

“There is a possibility that location would be available.  It is an excellent location for a regional center, but if that is not suitable for them, there are other areas in Newport that we could show them that I think they would be pleased with.  We will definitely be putting that in our proposal.”

The regional centers could be fully operational by 2020.

Johnathan Reaves is the News Director for KASU Public Radio. As part of an Air Force Family, he moved to Arkansas from Minot, North Dakota in 1986. He was first bitten by the radio bug after he graduated from Gosnell High School in 1992. While working on his undergraduate degree, he worked at KOSE, a small 1,000 watt AM commercial station in Osceola, Arkansas. Upon graduation from Arkansas State University in 1996 with a degree in Radio-Television Broadcast News, he decided that he wanted to stay in radio news. He moved to Stuttgart, Arkansas and worked for East Arkansas Broadcasters as news director and was there for 16 years.