Excerpt:

ALAMEDA -- The city will save $12.5 million in infrastructure costs at Alameda Point when the Veterans Affairs Department builds a health clinic and columbarium, money that could be used to build a sports complex and pay for other redevelopment at the former U.S. Navy base, according to Alameda officials.

The savings are outlined in a nonbinding agreement between the city and the VA that will go before the City Council on Tuesday. The outpatient clinic will provide health care for at least 7,000 local veterans, and the columbarium could house the remains of up to 310,000 former service members. It would be a national cemetery.

The health clinic will also offer visitors a view of the San Francisco skyline, while the national cemetery will be located near a colony of the endangered California least tern, which nest at Alameda Point for about four months each year as they migrate along the West Coast. No date has been set for the groundbreaking.