The Department of Veterans Affairs officially took ownership of 624 acres of Alameda Point on Monday, which it hopes to transform into a new, one-stop medical and benefits center, a national cemetery and a wildlife preserve.

“We are proud that the new One VA facility will call Alameda home,” Mayor Marie Gilmore said during a public ceremony at the Alameda Theatre & Cineplex that included a color guard, speeches and a video offering the history of the former Naval Air Station and renderings of the planned facilities.

The complex is slated to include 158,000 square feet of medical clinics and office space and an 80-acre columbarium with enough space to hold the cremated remains of up to 300,000 servicemen and women and their family members. The remaining 512 acres will remain undeveloped and will be managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a California least tern colony and migratory stopover for other birds, with some public recreational access.

The department hopes to secure money from Congress to build the $208.6 million project next year, and a staffer said they anticipate it will be open for business in 2018 or 2019. It will replace the department’s outpatient clinic in Oakland.

Monday’s ceremony marked the Navy’s second major transfer of property at Alameda Point. The city secured 509 acres of Alameda Point in 2012.

Speakers at the ceremony detailed the challenges they faced in effecting the land transfer to the VA, from environmental constraints to bureaucratic hurdles and federal funding issues.

The seeds for the VA deal were sown in 2003, when the department – which needed new facilities in the Bay Area – became aware the Navy had land available, Claude Hutchison, a former VA official who helped secure the deal, said Monday. The process encompassed the administrations of two presidents and five Veterans Administration secretaries, he said.

But Hutchison praised Alameda and former Mayor Beverly Johnson, who he said welcomed the VA with open arms.

“We knew instantly that we were in the perfect community,” he said.

The VA has come under fire for lapses in care that left dozens of veterans dead and tens of thousands of others facing long waits for care. The Federal Bureau of Investigation launched a criminal investigation, while the results of a White House investigation of the VA released in June found “significant and chronic system failures.”

Glenn Haggstrom, the VA’s director of acquisition, logistics and construction, acknowledged the recent scandals over the lapses in care and benefits for veterans and promised that “immediate reforms” are underway. He said better facilities are among the things the VA needs to improve care.

Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who one speaker called a “tremendous advocate” for veterans and for the project, said she’ll continue to fight for funding for the facilities, which are intended to provide “one-stop” access to meet a variety of veterans’ medical and administrative needs.

“This is the standard and the model for the rest of the country,” Lee said of the planned complex.

Veterans said the services the new facilities would provide are badly needed here in the Bay Area and that the supply of existing medical services for veterans have not kept up with the need for those services. Northern Alameda County is home to nearly 29,000 and the greater Bay Area, 267,000.

“We all know that the VA has faced some challenges,” said Delphine Metcalf-Foster, a veteran of Desert Storm and Desert Shield who worked at Alameda Point. “I am hopeful that the VA will be able to make a real impact here in Alameda.”