Dayton favored for VA archives
Dayton Daily News – The Dayton VA Medical Center campus appears to be the favored site for housing the national VA archive, the hospital’s interim director told city officials Wednesday.
The interim director, William Montague, said he expects a decision “in the next few months.”
The VA has been reluctant to say how many people would be employed at the archive, though a likely number is about 25, a spokeswoman for U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown said last year.
The project would involve locating the archive in two 19th-century buildings at the Dayton VA’s campus, 4100 W. Third St., which itself dates back to 1867.
The two buildings that would house the archive are Building 116, currently unoccupied, which housed Dayton VA headquarters starting in 1871; and Building 129, erected in 1881 and currently a police service building.
If the archive comes to Dayton, the roughly $10 million in renovations to those two buildings would be covered by the federal government in Washington and would not come directly out of the Dayton VA’s budget, Montague said. He also said the possibility is being explored of training veterans to serve as archivists.
