Newark's Veterans Affairs Community Based Outpatient Clinic will get its long-awaited expansion when it moves within the next few years.

The current facility, at 1912 Tamarack Road, was crowded when it served 2,000 local veterans in 2008. It now serves more than 2,600 veterans in its 3,400 square feet, according to a press release from Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Genoa Township.

The new facility -- with a targeted opening date of winter 2011 -- could serve as many as 4,500 veterans in its 9,800 square feet, said Al Burzynski, public affairs officer with the clinic's parent center, the Chalmers P. Wylie Veterans Ambulatory Care Center in Columbus.

"(We want) to continue to provide the quality health care services that the veterans of Newark are used to," Burzynski said.

The center will continue to provide basic primary care, optometry and mental health services, and will add audiology and clinical pharmacy when the new clinic opens at 1861 W. Main St.

"This is great news for veterans in our community," Tiberi said in a press release. "I am pleased the facility will expand to meet the growing needs of veterans in Central Ohio."

The Newark facility is one of 30 VA outpatient clinics in Ohio, started with the goal of placing a facility within 30 miles of every veteran, "to ensure that veterans in rural America have access to health care," Burzynski said.

As a veteran himself, whose father served in World War II, Burzynski can remember needing to travel long distances for care in the past.

"I'd have to drive 100, 120 miles to either take my father to a medical center, or take myself," he said. "The only choice you had was a medical center."