The Department of Veterans Affairs on Monday announced it has awarded a lease for a permanent clinic at a 4.5-acre site at 3601 Gerstner Memorial Parkway.

The 20-year lease was signed with SDA LLC. The building at the former Lake Charles Toyota location has 24,088 usable square feet.

VA officials said services provided at the permanent clinic will include primary care; women’s health; physical therapy; prosthetics; mental health; ophthalmology and optometry; dental and pharmacy services.

VA officials have said the permanent clinic could see patients by late 2016.

Jim Jackson, vice chair of the Mayor’s Armed Forces Commission, said the lease is progress that has been “13 years in the making.”

“I just want to say hallelujah,” he said. “Let’s go build a clinic that our veterans will be proud of and provide them with the care they need,” he said.

Tom Green, Louisiana VA Southwest Louisiana commissioner, said the site chosen “should meet all of our needs.”

“It is reasonably accessible, being on a major thoroughfare,” he said. “It is a great gift to veterans here in Lake Charles and surrounding areas. We want to make sure the VA’s relationship with veterans is maintained throughout this process of completion of the new facility.”

Green said he hasn’t toured the site for the permanent clinic and isn’t sure whether the existing building will be used, or if another will be built in its place.

U.S. Rep Charles Boustany, R-Lafayette, said in a news release that veterans in Lake Charles “have waited far too long for this clinic.” U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said he will “continue pushing the VA to move as quickly as possible” to get the permanent clinic open.

Earlier this month, the VA signed a lease for an interim VA clinic at 814 W. McNeese St., Suite 100. The 5,000-square-foot facility should start seeing patients by the end of this year, according to VA officials.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (Photo courtesy of Getty Images through the Associated Press)