Building 13, at the center of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ West Los Angeles campus, is a century-old, two-story monolith composed of three wings adorned in intricate Art Deco detail.
It’s been vacant for decades, but it has a new destiny — if the money to restore it can be found — to anchor a town center at the heart of a community of veterans on the 388-acre campus.
For some veterans, its best use would be a veterans hotel — with a bar — a gathering place for veterans on the campus and their brothers and sisters around Southern California and the nation.
Bobby Shriver, the former Santa Monica mayor and veterans advocate who gathered ideas from focus groups he organized in 2015, said he was caught off guard but came to understand.
“It became clear to me that what they wanted was a hotel bar where they could go to meet other veterans from …