The new 120 room facility will replace the current 45 room DeWitt Army Medical Center at the cost of $747 million. The scheduled construction completion date is summer 2010.

‘‘This ground breaking today further defines what we are,” said Walter Reed Army Medical Center Commander Maj. Gen. Eric Schoomaker. ‘‘What we are is a ... community of very dedicated professionals committed to raising the health of the total military family to the highest level possible. This great community hospital here at Fort Belvoir is just one piece ... of a very large, well-integrated National Capital Region plan. [It will] raise the bar of health care to extend it to this entire [military] family and to support the war fighter, regardless of the uniform they wear.”

The Base Realignment and Closure Act of 2005 determined that Walter Reed Army Medical Center will be closed. Its resources will be dispersed to the soon-to-be-built Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda and the new Fort Belvoir Community Hospital.

The Belvoir hospital will be three times bigger than the current building, said Joint Task Force National Capital Region-Medical Commander Rear Adm. John Mateczun. Several new services will be added to the facility, including a cancer center, a behavioral health center and a community-based outpatient clinic.

Congressman Jim Moran, U.S. Representative for Virginia’s 8th district and a keynote speaker at the event, praised the Defense Department’s efforts to improve the health care of America’s wounded service members.

‘‘Today’s ground breaking represents a milestone in the medical treatment and the support of our wounded warriors. The [Base Realignment and Closure] recommendation that had a unanimous agreement was the realignment of the [Walter Reed Army Medical Center],” Moran said. ‘‘For all of the medical miracles that surgeons have performed [there], for all of the lives that the physical therapists have rehabilitated [there] — the fact is the facilities at Walter Reed are out-dated. They are worn down and they are unworthy of our Soldiers returning home from war.”

The construction of the new medical center is only part of the Defense Department’s plan to increase health care efficiency for America’s uniformed services.

The new Joint Task Force National Capital Region-Medical has been established to oversee the integration of all military medical services in the region and to carry out the changes mandated through the Base Realignment and Closure Act.

The National Capital Region is the nation’s premier casualty reception site today, but it will be even better in the future, Mateczun said.

‘‘This will be the nation’s premier regional healthcare system. I didn’t say the ‘military’s’ premier healthcare system. I said the ‘nation’s,’” Mateczun said. ‘‘In order to reach that goal, we have to be able to reach across the services and join hands. We have to be able to coordinate effectively across the whole area so that we can deliver the health care services that America’s veterans coming back from [war] [need].”