The future Walter Reed National Military Medical Center is starting to take shape in Bethesda after officials cut the ribbon on two new facilities on the site of the National Naval Medical Center late last month.

Facilities at NavyMed are being enhanced in preparation for its pending merger with Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the District, which is slated for completion in September of 2011 as part of the federal Base Realignment and Closure process.

A new six-floor outpatient clinic and cancer treatment center known as the America Building, along with an inpatient addition to the hospital dubbed the Arrowhead Building, were both recently completed by the Naval Facilities Engineering Command's Washington Office-in-Charge of Construction Bethesda. The two facilities will provide care for members of the military and their families.

The 515,000 square foot America Building includes cancer treatment facilities, an amputee center with a swimming pool, and outpatient clinics including internal medicine, audiology, dermatology and orthopedics. Construction began on the facility in  July of 2008.

The Arrowhead Building, a 162,000 square foot addition which broke ground in August of 2008, adds 50 intensive care, private patient beds to NavyMed along with expanded medical space.

Construction contractor Clark/Balfour Beatty was awarded $6.4 million for the two projects from Naval Facilities Engineering Command in March of 2008.

The America Building is already seeing patients, according to a statement by Capt. Steve Hamer, commanding officer of the Office-in-Charge of Construction Bethesda, and the Arrowhead Building will soon begin seeing patients.

"The reason we do this is because we are trying to create an environment of care, both aesthetically and professionally for the men and women of this country who provide their blood, their sweat, and occasionally their tears, in defending us and stepping out in front of everybody else and saying 'nothing will hurt you all, I have the watch,'" said Rear Adm. Matthew Nathan, commander of the National Naval Medical Center, in a statement.

"Those men and women and their families, both in active service and the legacy they leave as retirees, deserve our best and deserve the best environment of care and deserve the best professionalism and competency of care, and I think this is a down payment on that promise."