Final contract awarded to finish Colorado VA hospital by ’18

The federal government has awarded a final construction contract to complete an over-budget veterans hospital outside Denver by January 2018 for a total of just under $1.7 billion.

The contract issued Friday authorizes builder Kiewit-Turner to spend about $571 million more to finish the hospital, on top of nearly $1.1 billion already spent.

Congress reluctantly approved the additional spending last month.

The contract means construction will speed up at the site in suburban Aurora.

Work has been moving slowly since December, when a panel of judges ruled the Veterans Affairs Department breached the original contract. The judges said the design couldn’t be built for the agreed-upon price of about $583 million.

Investigators blamed the overruns on multiple design changes and a complicated contract process that VA officials didn’t fully understand.